So You Think You Can Dance - Live and in Person!!!

Anyone one who knows Alyssa and I knows we are absolutely crazy for "So You Think You Can Dance".  We have watched it religiously for four of the last five seasons it has been on.  We have attended the live tour shows when they come to town as well for the last three years, but one thing we had not managed to do was attend a live taping of the TV show.  Earlier this summer while looking at the So You Think You Can Dance website I noticed they had an icon on the homepage that said get tickets to a show, so I of course clicked on it, it led me to a registration area where I could enter my name and email address, and put my name in a lottery for tickets to be part of a live audience, I figured what the heck, why not.  This is the only way to get tickets to the show since they do not sell them... I would strongly recommend signing up for the lottery if there is any way you can get to California on short notice it was so fun.  Well anyway, on with the story; I of course got no email saying I had show tickets all season and frankly didn't really expect to get one, then last Friday night at 6pm an email popped into my box from "On Camera Audiences" with a subject line SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE   I almost peed my pants. I had a small amount of time to click on a link and request a group of tickets to the finale show taping on Tuesday only a few days away! I got the tickets, then got the OK from Mike to take a road trip, then made THE CALL the Alyssa. We immediately knew who we had to invite to come along..... Alexia and Stephanie Stamas the only two other girls we know just as crazy for this show as us.... the only bummer was Laurie,(their mom and my best bud ) couldn't come due to a business trip conflict!  We have already decided we are all going to try for tickets again next season so we can get Laurie to the show!! We got plane tickets, and a hotel room and rental car, next and most importantly was outfit planning!  The ticket voucher came with a list of things  not to wear if you were going to be in a live audience so the girls needed to plan around this, the most problematic item was all shows had to be closed toed and flat( some safety restriction)... all of us except Stephie and to buy shoes!  We were on our way bright and early Tuesday morning, hopping on the plane to LA. First stop was to pick up the rental car then head to the hotel for a quick change into our show clothes then off to get to the line to turn our ticket voucher into actual tickets at 2pm at the Kodak Theatre inHollywood. The girls were taking photos from the minute we hit the airport as evidenced above,( photos taken on the plane, photos in the hotel room and in the car which is good since there was a strict rule about no phones or cameras in the theatre so we couldn't photograph any of the good stuff we saw.... dang!! We got our tickets and proceeded into the theatre around 4:30pm along with 3000 other people!  A normal show taping has about 300 people at it, this was huge in comparison. While coming in from the parking garage the girls saw Travis Wahl,( previous season finalist and current season choreographer) on the escalater and were going crazy!! We were seated in the upper balcony we we had a pretty good view of the show, in addition to the stage there were numerous large screens showing all the  performances it was very cool. We saw all the season 5 dancers as they entered and took there seats, as well as Mia Michaels, Adam Shankman, and Sonya Tayah and  Travis Wahl. We also saw Jeannine's and Evan's families as we were entering the theatre.... very exciting( mostly exciting seeing Jeaninne's family ... we are all HUGE Jeannine fans).    We all literally went crazy when they started playing the  SYTYCD theme song and Cat Deeley and the top 4 came out on stage it was so incredible!!!! Cat is even more gorgeous and tall in person.  During the  commercial breaks and before the show there was an audience warm up guy  that worked the crowd and kept everyone pumped and led the audience in recording some standing "O"s and cheering segments they would use on TV.  Unfortunately I think it will be a miracle if you see us on TV the crowd was so massive. In a normal taping of only 300 people it would be way more likely.  Without ruining tonites show, I have to say that there were  a couple numbers that totally blew my socks off and my two favorites Jeannine and Brandon are still leading the pack in my opinion and Nigels!!!!  We even got to hear Mary do her Hot Tamale train scream. After the show we got to watch a special rehearsal of a number they will be using in the Thursday night show using the top 8 dancers..and some special guests it was quite cool!  After the show we hung out in the Kodak Theatre center for some icecream waiting for the traffic to die down before we drove back to the hotel.  While waiting we brushed shoulders with choreographer Louis van Amstal... thanks for spotting him Stephie!! While pulling out the of the parking garage we saw another of our favorite dancers, Randi!!! Stephie quickly rolled down and window and screamed " we Love you Randi!!!" she was only a few feet a way and she smiled and waved back.... It was an incredible trip, with my favorite college girls, we can't wait to try to do it again next season.

Comments

[Cameron]

OH MY GOSH!!! You have the best girls' trips ever, I need to move to AZ so I can join you some time. :) I'm visiting my sister right now and SYTYCD is taping since my nieces' bedtimes interfered... I can't wait to see it! :) So envious you got to be there!

[Carolyn Peeler]

I so enjoyed reading about your adventure Tena. What a fabulous memory! I too LOVE SYTYCD...can't wait for it to start again tonight :)
Hope all is well with you.

[Tracie]

I am going to a taping of so you think you can dance tomorrow! How early did you have to get there to get your tickets?? It says to be there by 3 but what do you think???

[Tena Sprenger]

Hi Tracie,
I would most definitely get there no later than 3pm.If your time ticket time was 3pm that is the time they will start handing out tickets to your group, but the people who are also in your time slot will most likely have already been lined up and they do not guarantee tickets for everyone in each time slot.( I am always worried so we got there before our time and waited a little) People will already be lined up around the building. It is very random how they hand out tickets, we were a party of 4 and we had 2 people sitting in one place and 2 people sitting in another. After they give you your tickets you will have time to get something to eat in the mall adjacent to the theatre, then you go inside the theatre and wait for another long while...... but it is totally worth it. The one thing I found peculiar was they made a really big deal about the dress code and not wearing open toed shoes.... have the people there were wearing open toed shoes! we all bought new shoes since we didnt have any closed toed summer shoes and got some yucky blisters! You are going to have a great time. tena