Our member *blistering* blogging about being at the Live Eviction show

Pat please share the pics of you at last years evictions on this thread ok??

Sure! Here are the three shows I made it to for BB10:

Brian's Eviction:




Steven's Eviction:




Michelle/Ollie Double Eviction:



Great times!

wooohooo Pat!! And you will be at the first 3 Live evictions this season right!?

That's the plan at least unless the do another "no-repeats" rule. I have tickets for the first 3 shows already and we'll see how the others go as they get closer and tickets are released!

awesome Pat!! We look forward to your updates from the evictions!!!!!! yay our own correspondent!!!

Thanks for the call in on the show, that was fun!

Here's a screen cap showing where I was. The funny thing was that I got there at the perfect time, pulled up, asked the parking guard when they are letting people in, he said in 5 mins, parked, ran in, and got line #1! But still didn't get a good seat, though really there areno bad seats because it's so small, but this new audience company fills the seats differently than the last and I got stuck in the back.

It was still great fun. Here's a screen cap of where I was so you can see if you guessed right or not.

LOL, I guessed completely wrong Pat!! It was awesome that you were there and were able to share that on the show last night!! Thanks again for that!!

Doesn't Julie look cute preggo? lol

She did look great and it was very cute! Production was always helping her giving her a hand on the steps and things like that. It was adorable. The outfit she was waring looked really cute on her. But I would have been surprised if it was any other way!

Julie always has cute outfits and so far her maternity wear is so cute too .... great wardrobe!

I'm in the middle of writing a recap of the trip while it's still fresh and will post it here too in case anyone is interested. Here is part 1:

Part I: Arrival and checking in

I was able to go to three of the live shows last season, so I was curious to see if they would change things at all for the new season. For the most part, it was pretty much the same, though they used a different company to manage the audience and it was a little different but not much.

The first thing was trying to figure out the right time to get there to get decent seats. The tickets tell you to be there no later than 3:30PM, but I remember them letting people in sooner than that last season, so I called the audience organizers to see what time they would be letting people in. They said they would be letting people in at 3:30PM which sounded late compared to last year, I checked the ticket info from last season, and it said that CBS opens the parking lot about 1 hour 45 mins before the broadcast starts. That still sounded late, so I decided to get up there a bit earlier. I was coming from Dana Point, Braden’s home town and it’s about an hour and a half drive up to Studio City where the BB house is. On the long drive up I ran into some traffic and the GPS got kind of confused up near the studio, so I was getting worried a bit. It’s kind of nerve wracking until you actually are there and have your line number so I was trying to hustle. I finally get up to the lot about 2:20PM and asked the guard at the gate when they were letting people in. He said they will let people in at 2:30 and to turn around and come back then. So I turned around, parked across the street, walked back to the parking structure, through that to the check in point and was surprised to find I was the first person in line! The timing couldn’t have been better.

They weren’t ready to let us through the metal detectors and into the check-in area on the lot, so the guard had me start a line. They had just opened the parking structure and people were busy parking, but over the next 10 minutes people started piling in and getting in line behind me. (If you ever go to the show, park out on the street and walk in, you get a 10-15 minute jump on all the people parking in the structure) About 10 mins later there were probably 30 people in line there too. The guy just behind me kind of got screwed. They don’t allow cameras or phones on the lot and someone had dropped him off with his fancy new iphone in pocket. They weren’t going to let him in. I don’t know what happened to him but I didn’t see him after that, so that must have totally sucked.

After waiting for about 15 mins they started letting us in I went through the metal detectors and down to the area where they give you a line number and take your photo for the release records. I was given line #12, the first of the commoners. I was happy because that meant there would only be 11 VIPs and us commoners wouldn’t be getting screwed today. So I sat down at the front of the bench where they have us all wait and filled out the release form. They also hand out questionnaires asking you who did you want to see go home tonight, who do you think will go home tonight, what question would you ask Jessie the HoH, and is there another question you would ask a different houseguest. I filled that out too and sat waiting while people started piling in.

After about 15 mins the people getting in had line #’s in the sixties and I heard they were holding people back at security now as they thought they had let enough people into the lot to fill the audience. I didn’t see it, but one person that went back to use the restroom said there were a ton of people at the security checkpoint that were waiting and hoping to get in. The line of people sitting on the bench was getting pretty long and some people started standing around. Someone from production came out and started collecting the questionnaires and talking to people about their responses. She worked her way down the line and was out there for probably about 30 mins doing that.

Meanwhile a few of the VIP’s started showing up and after they got their line numbers were standing around at the front of the waiting line where I was sitting. I started talking to two ladies that were VIPs and that was pretty interesting. One of the ladies was there because her son works in production for American Idol and for some reason they made some VIP slots available to Idol production. It was her birthday and her son had gotten her a VIP pass to the BB audience. Talking to her was interesting because she had just been to the American Idol finale and had some interesting stories about that. She had also dined at Hell’s Kitchen several times and that was something I was always curious about. So we talked about how things work inside Hell’s Kitchen, what it is like to be there and who exactly are all these people we see eating there.

At this point they had stopped letting people in. I think they were at about line number 110. So it was just bunch of people waiting around instead of a mob waiting to get photographed with their release form and line number.

Not long after that the audience organizers came out and made sure everyone was in order by line number and doing a head count to see if they had the right number. That was nice because the company that did it last season didn’t do that, and it pretty much became a free for all once you were inside the area with your line number. They also told everyone we’d be heading to the set in about 20 mins, so if you need to use the restroom, do it now. A bunch of people decided to take their advice and then we all just sat waiting.

Continued in Part II: Getting Seated

Part II: Getting Seated

After waiting in the audience holding area until about 3:50PM, they finally had us stand up and get in order of line number for the walk to the set. There were only 7 VIP’s so I was the 8th person on the march to the set. The walk through the lot is always fun. It’s about 150 yards or so from the holding area to the BB House. Along the way you see some other sets like The Insider and numerous bungalows that serve as writing and production offices. As you walk by the bungalows they are little notices printed off a computer printer posted on the doors that let you know what the bungalow is being used for. There were several for Rita Rocks and a few others that I forget.

Along the walk you also pass by the area where they construct the sets for the comps. Last season I saw them building huge vats that looked like water towers. (Those ended up being used in the grape stomping comp last season.) There was no construction underway this time, but I did see those same vats still there stacked up on top of the construction area. I was keeping a keen eye out for any signs of what might be used in future comps. Since the area was mostly closed up this time and there was no activity, there wasn’t much to see, but I did see something that looked like a giant bank vault door. I can’t remember seeing that though it didn’t look freshly painted at the time. It is either something old they still have or could possibly be getting ready for a future competition.

That area is right next to the back of the house where the barn doors in the BY are located. Also around that area was the hammock and pillows from the back yard. The hammock is always sitting right there unguarded and you walk next to it. Every time I have to resist the urge to climb into the thing to see what it’s like. If they let cameras in there it would be really hard to resist climbing into it for a quick photo. This time they also had the little vegetable cart out there. I guess they take all the removable things out of the back yard when they setup for the comps. So I spent a minute checking that out to see how they were doing. They have some tomatoes and peppers on the way. I didn’t see the strawberry they showed on the feeds the other day.

Not long after that is the door to the set and they have everyone line up in front of the door and stand next to a chain link fence. Last season we stood there in the hot sun for a while. This time they didn’t have us stand there for very long.. Another difference from last season was at this point they would walk down the line and pick out people dressed nicely for the front rows. This time they didn’t do that, so I was optimistic of getting a good seat since I was in the first group of 10 people and immediately behind the 7 VIPs.

After a few minutes they started taking us in, collecting our line number and release sheets and making sure we threw away any water bottles and spit out any chewing gum. As we walked onto the set it was great to be back in air conditioning since it was so hot outside standing in the sun. But after entering I realized another difference this season, that they started filling the sides and the back first instead of the front rows! When they got to me, they sat me in the back row a few seats from the aisle. So much for being at the front of the line this time! But the set is so small there really isn’t a bad seat in the house and I was happy to have any seat in there. It took about 15-20 more mins before they had seated everyone they way they wanted and then we sat quietly waiting for something else to happen. Time was about 4:20PM.

Continued in Part III: Waiting For the Show to Start

Part III: Waiting For the Show to Start

Once you are seated in the set, it’s time to relax. It’ nice and cool, you’re there and you can just take in the set while you wait for things to start. I described the set in the recaps last season but for those that didn’t get to see that, the set is very small. It’s much smaller than you would think from seeing it on TV. From the door to the house in the back of the set to the front row of the audience is maybe 25 feet. From the front of the audience to the wall behind all the cameras is maybe another 25 feet. There are about 20-25 people from production on the set during filming. Three camera operators, a few audience coordinators, several makeup people tending to Julie Chen, the stage manager, about 10 people sitting behind monitors and a handful of other people standing around. So the set is small, cool, and quiet and it’s easy to forget where you are.

But shortly after everyone is seated a guy comes out to keep the audience occupied. He talks a bit about the season so far (nothing interesting, did you see the last show? What did you think about that??) and also introduces Don Wollman, one of the producers. Don is always there (at least every time I have been there) wearing a baseball jersey with his name on the back. He is also the guy that does the BB voices on the feeds. They explain that not only is he a produce but he is also the voice of BB. Don then says a few of quotes and that’s kind of cool to hear the voice. He took a request but someone asked for something stupid. It was so not interesting that I don’t even remember what it is. I was hoping someone would get him to say “Jessie I said GET UP before I come in there and cut off your balls” but no such luck.

Then the first guy starts calling people down to the stage to answer trivia questions. They were giving out black “Big Brother Audience” t-shirts but they were kind of lame. It just had “Big Brother Audience” in small type on the front side breast and I don’t even think it was in the BB font. But it was still kind of cool they were giving them out. So he would call people down and ask pretty simple questions like “Of these 4 previous house guests, which one was not one of the four with a chance to re-enter the house this season?”. The audience was allowed to shout answers to the person so every person got it right and won a t-shirt. That went on for about 15 mins and they gave out about 15 or so t-shirts. When they were done, it was about 4:40PM.

After that the stage manager, I think his name is Eric, came out to brief everyone on what would be going down. He was the same stage manager as least season and is pretty funny. He told everyone it was going to be an exciting show and for everyone to have a good time. He cautioned everyone about staring at the overheard monitors when the camera is running as if you do you’ll look like an idiot. He also told everyone to smile when you applaud as otherwise you will look like a psycho. It was pretty much the same spiel as last season. He explained a little bit more about how tonight’s show would go and to watch him for signs on when to applaud and so forth. About 4:45-4:50 Julie Chen came out and the stage manager introduced her to the audience and everyone cheered and shouted complements. She looked really good in her outfit and was very friendly to the audience. After the initial hello she stood on the stage facing the cameras and rehearsed her lines off the teleprompter while the makeup people tended to her and her outfit.

About 4:55 (they have several digital clocks on the set showing the exact time) the stage manager told everyone that the show would be starting in a few minutes and to sit up straight, get ready, and have a great time. Right after 4:58 they announced 1 minute to go and the staff settled into positions. . If the clocks are correct and not adjusted for a delay, it looks like they run on about a 45 second delay. At 4:59 the stage manager started a count down. At about 4:59 and 15 seconds filming started and Julie began her opening monologue.

Continued in Part IV: The Show

Part IV: The Show

Before the show recap, there is one other thing I forgot to mention in the previous part. When we were all seated and the first guy came out to talk about the show, he wanted to see who the audience thought would win the season. He went through all the HG names and had everyone applaud to vote for who they thought would win at the end of the season. (Also, most of the audience didn’t seem to be feed watchers judging by the conversations I heard in the waiting line.) But going by the applause, the audience thought Lydia was most likely to win followed by Casey. In last place was Ronnie who didn’t get a single person to clap when they called his name. The set was crickets. It was pretty funny. The next two in last place were Chima (one person clapped) and Natalie (one person clapped). So in the audience, even the non-feed watchers hated those two.

Once the show started there are some opening camera shots as Julie does her monologue and shakes audience hands. Then they ran about 15 minutes of footage. During that time the audience just sits and watches the show unfold on the monitors while the production staff goes about setting up for when the cameras come back to Julie. Everything is pretty quiet and the audience is pretty absorbed in watching the show. It stays like this until they return from the first commercial break. During the clips they were showing though, you could hear people in the audience seeing some of the argument clips for the first time and started to change their opinions about some of the people.

Going by audience reaction (in the votes and HoH comp) Lydia’s popularity dropped over the course of the show. As did Kevin’s when he told Jordan the bit about ostracizing the Jeff and Braden or pay the price.

But nothing much interesting happened for the first 20 minutes until Julie started her conversation with the HG’s. The questions to the HG’s on the couch were pretty uneventful. Just normal questions and answers and the audience didn’t react beyond the occasional chuckle.

During the HoH questions, the audience was not impressed with Jessie. There were a few Jessie fans, but the audience was quiet and didn’t have any reaction to Jessie’s answers aside from an occasional chuckle at something stupid.

On the nominee statements of course there was a lot of audience reaction. As soon as Chima dropper her bombs the audience was looking around with everyone thinking “did she just say what I thought she said?” The stage manager was standing back there making gestures telling the audience to keep it cool. Julie didn’t bat an eyelash though. She’s a pro. There were still a lot of murmurs in the audience as that speech was pretty unexpected. I don’t remember the full quote though I’ve seen it posted, but what Chima said was along the lines of “Some people in here must have short memories. Braden called two people a beaner and Julie he also called you a whore…”

During the commercial break in the middle of voting, the stage manager talked to the audience and told them nice job on keeping cool. He told everyone that Standards and Practices has the footage now and will be taking that out. He said we picked a good show to attend since we were the only ones that would get to hear Chima’s exact words. But other than that, production didn’t react to it at all. I’m sure those people have seen and heard everything and are always ready for anything that happens. Especially with the type of people they cast. It was kind of weird sitting there though, knowing that what was just filmed had gone off to some people in another room somewhere who bleeped it out and then passed it right on to the broadcast. They really have an amazing operation up there.

When back from commercial the voting continues. The voting part is the only part where it’s better to see it on TV. In the studio, you can’t hear the HG talk when they go in to vote. At one of the shows last season they explained that they didn’t want to take any chances that the HG’s on the other side of the wall on the couches can hear people talking when they vote. You can hear all the other convos during the show, just not the reading of the votes. So when you are there in the audience, everyone is squinting trying to read lips on the small monitors. The audience was quiet during voting until Ronnie. Every knew that he was the swing vote and so everyone was paying close attention at that point. When Ronnie voted, most of the audience let out a sigh. A few people clapped, but most were not happy with that outcome. When Jessie chose to evict Braden there wasn’t much reaction as everyone pretty much expected that.

When the evicted HG is saying their goodbyes is the most exciting time in the audience. The HG is about to walk out that door, through the audience and the show moves into the studio. When Braden came out, the audience was genuinely cheering him on and while mostly sad to see him evicted, the audience as pretty happy to get to see him interviewed. Braden was visibly bummed to have been evicted and was down as was seen on the show. But the audience was friendly to him with laughs, cheers and applause. During this time production is busy gong about there jobs and not much is going on on that front. Julie was a little cold in her interview compared to as friendly as she has been with other evictees in the past.

After the interview they whisked Braden away to a back room somewhere to await coming back out for the early show interview after the BB episode finishes.

During the HoH comp the audience was paying close attention. But there wasn’t much reaction during the comp. Everything was quiet until Laura was eliminated and then the girl what was cheering for Braden’s eviction clapped enthusiastically. When Ronnie won there was no reaction. Before the comp the stage manager told us not to applaud for the winner of the HoH comp. (They always do this, it was nothing special for this episode.) So when Ronnie won, there was no applause but the audience wasn’t happy about it anyway.

After that Julie came back from commercial to say the final words and then they had the audience applaud as the show ended.

Once the show was over, production set about changing the set and getting things ready to bring Braden back so they could tape his interview segment for The Early Show the next day.

Continued in Part V: The Early Show Interview

Just so you know Pat...I am thoroughly enjoying this!!!!!

I love that NO ONE clapped for Ronnie and only 1 clap each for Nat and Chima!!

Part V: The Early Show Interview

After the BB show ends they change the set around a little bit and bring back the evicted house guest to tape the interview for The Early Show the next day.

This usually takes 15-20 mins or so and usually is kind of boring but is still interesting to be there to see.

It only took about 5 minutes to setup for the early show taping. Then the stage manager told them to put a microphone on Braden and bring him back out. The production staff all have little headsets the use to talk to “those other people” which I presume is the control room somewhere else. He talked to them for a minute than told the set that new tapes were loaded and they were ready to go.

As they got a mike on Braden in whatever room they had him in, we could hear him mumbling a bit. Then they brought him out, sat him down, and started taping the interview.

The first half of the interview was pretty boring and the audience was just sitting there quietly. But it started to pick up in the second half as Braden’s responses started getting more and more odd. When they got to the True/False headlines questions thing it was becoming really funny. It was almost as if Braden was having a completely different conversation than Julie. At one point Julie even turned around to the audience to see if it was just her or was this really not making a lot of sense. The audience woke up and was laughing quite a bit at the strange answers from Braden and Braden starting turning around occasionally and adressing the audience.

The final part of TES show interview was definitely the funniest part of the evening. If you haven’t seen it, you should:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5167505n&tag=cbsnewsVideoArea.0

After they wrapped up the interview, they had everyone give Braden another round of applause and then whisked him away for who knows what and Julie Chen left the set. A few minutes later the audience coordinators had us get up row by row and exit the set. They grouped us up outside the set and then led us back to the check in point. On the way back a girl from production was passing us and asked the group I was in how we liked the show they had for us today and of course we all said it was great.

Once back at the security check in point, you’re free to head back to your car and head home.

As usual it was a fun experience and if you ever get the chance to go, definitely go!

Lorraine wrote:

Just so you know Pat...I am thoroughly enjoying this!!!!!

I love that NO ONE clapped for Ronnie and only 1 clap each for Nat and Chima!!

Yeah, that was really funny when the set was silent on Ronnie. I wish he could know about that right now! lol

But glad you enjoyed it! Some of it is kind of boring and long winded, but a lot of people aren't able to ever go and I wanted to describe as much of what a day up there is like so that they can get a feeling for it.

Quote :

After they wrapped up the interview, they had everyone give Braden another round of applause and then whisked him away for who knows what and Julie Chen left the set.

Well he had a gig on BBAD Radio that he had to prepare for!!!!LOL!

Thanks Pat, I thouroughly enjoyed that. I kept checking to see if the next part of your blog was posted!!

Can't wait for next weeks blog!!!

Hey Pat, are you going to tonights live eviction??!!! Will you be calling in again? LOL

Yup! Heading up again before all the HG's I would care to see are gone! (It would be horrible to be up there and forced to applaud and cheer for Jessie or Ronnie or worse yet, sit through their interviews!)

It probably won't be as eventful of a show as last week, but if you'd like me to call in again, sure, I'll be happy to.

So here's some highlights from this week's show. It wasn't as interesting as last week so I won't do a full recap, all the stuff before and after the show was pretty much the same aside from the line getting out of control and line numbers pretty much meaning nothing.

I got there 10 mins late because of an accident backing up the freeway, but still wound up with line number 59 (audience seats about 120 people). During the walk to the set it was a free for all and I wound up in the last 30 people or so. Even so, seating this season is a crap shoot no matter where you are in line and I would up in the top row on the left this time, 2nd seat from the aisle. Pretty much the same seat as last week, just on the other side, and I had line number 11 (first non-vip line number) so the numbers don';t mean anything as far as where they have you sit.

The preshow spiel was pretty much the same as last week. Audience briefing, trivia with t-shirt prizes, etc. Julie Chen was on set earlier this time. In the past when I was there she always came on set about 10-15 minutes before the show started, this time it was about 25 minutes.

On the walk to the set, I was looking for competion clues as usual. They had a truck there unloading a few leather sofas and empty beer kegs and taking them into the BB compound. I have no idea what those were for.

I did see what looked like 18" blue blocks they didn't look like anything important at the time, but listening to the feeds it sounds like they were ice cubes used in the Have/Have Nots comp. Other than that, there was nothing obvious standing out as new comp set matterials.

The also did the "applaud for the HG you think will win this season" this time zero applause for Jessie, Lydia, Natalie, Kevin and Chima. Casey was the winner this time with Jeff second. Those two were the only ones to get any significant applause.

The stage manager was joking about "Darth Ronnie" and poking fun at him and saying he was more like Jar Jar Binks than Vader, the audience did not like Ronnie at all.

During the show there was nothing really noteworthy that wasn't seen on the show. The only thing different this time was that the did the live vote earlier and broke the eviction and exit interview across a commercial break. After Laura came out of the house and they went to commercial they had everyone keep silent during the commercial and sat Laura on the sofa. They had Julie Chen stay away from Laura during the break and it was pretty strange just watching Laura sitting there in silence for a few minutes when they crew ignored her. They later said they did that on purpose to preserve Laura's demeanor. They didn't want her chatting with Julie during the break and being more relaxed when the camera came back. It was kind of harsh actually!

The rest of the show was pretty much the same as it was for people watching it on TV. When Jeff was in the tie break with Jessie, everyone was pretty hopeful, but when Jessie won the tie break, the audience was not happy one bit and was pretty subdued.

The show ended and they did the Early Show interview. Nothing special there except they skipped the headlines questions they usually do. I don't know why they did that, but before the show started Julie said something about the questions for Braden last week not being very good so maybe they killed it because of that.

After the show ended and just before eveyone left, Eric the stage manager was messing around with something on the set and made a comment to the audience along the lines that Jessie was going to be insufferable this week. So it's interesting that even production has issues with Jessie.

The walk out took a little longer than last week but otherwise, it as just another fun trip to see the BB show aside from the HoH outcome!

Quote :

The also did the "applaud for the HG you think will win this season" this time zero applause for Jessie, Lydia, Natalie, Kevin and Chima. Casey was the winner this time with Jeff second. Those two were the only ones to get any significant applause.

What about pigvomit?

Quote :

The rest of the show was pretty much the same as it was for people watching it on TV. When Jeff was in the tie break with Jessie, everyone was pretty hopeful, but when Jessie won the tie break, the audience was not happy one bit and was pretty subdued

.

during the LIVE show I definitely heard a cheer erupt that was stifled quickly when Jeff hit the 6 pointer to tie Jessie.

Thanks for the recap Pat!

Lorraine wrote:

What about pigvomit?

lol.. pigvomit? With his cast, you'll need to be more specific! I should know which one is known as pig vomit, but I hate so many of them so much it's hard to differentiate!

Quote :

during the LIVE show I definitely heard a cheer erupt that was stifled quickly when Jeff hit the 6 pointer to tie Jessie.

For sure! The entire audience was rooting for a Jeff HoH. When it was down to just him and Jessie everyone was nervous but thrilled Jeff was still in it. When Jessie won it was like the audience died! You could feel it. It took effort to give applause at the end of the show after that!

I just hope the PoV comp goes well today. It's about damn time something finally goes in our favor!