As I mentioned before, we had tickets to yesterday’s Dancing with the Stars. On the tickets, it said to be there by at 3:30pm, and that not everyone is guaranteed a seat. From other people’s stories of visits to DWTS, I knew to get there early. However, I didn’t want to rush everyone, so we left the house at around 2pm, for a 12 mile ride to the studio. An hour early should be OK to get a seat, right?

So we started the drive, and I totally forgot about my first rule of driving around in California - add in a 1/2 hour for any trip you want to take. That 12 mile drive became a one hour drive. The parking lot was about 1/8 an mile from the studios, through a shopping area called “The Grove” (which is awesome, by the way). Normally, it wouldn’t be a bad walk, but we were all dressed up for the show in dresses and heels, so it was a pretty long, painful walk for our poor feet. By the time we actually found the gate we were supposed to line up at (we had passed up lines for Price is Right and The Craig Kilbourn show) it was 3:25.

But when we got to the line, there were only about 30 people in front of us. Little did we know, there were about 250 people who were already lined up inside the studio lot. 3:30 came and went, and we were still outside. There were about 75 people behind us in line. By4:15, we were still outside and debating on just leaving. But finally, we were allowed in. Lucky us, they cut off the line right behind Dave. It looks like they had packed the studio already and we were left to fill in the seats of VIP people who didn’t show up.

The studio is MUCH smaller than it is on TV. The dancefloor is tiny, almost as big as any dancefloor you see at a wedding. The whole studio only fits about 300 people. Unfortunately, we were seated directly across from the main stage, which meant that we wouldn’t be on camera, since they were situated right in front of us. But hey, we got in, so we were happy about that.

Even though the show is “live” on the east coast, they do some pre-taping of some of the segments, in case they have to do do-overs. Also, for some of the dances there might be extensive setup/takedown that occurs, and it isn’t possible to do during a live show.

The first pre-tape that was done was Wade Robson’s dance. I’m a big fan of his, way back when he was doing N’Sync videos. I’ve got a greater respect for him lately since he’s really turned out to be an artistic choreographer. And I admit, me and Dave used to try and do his dances when he had the Wade Robson show on MTV.

There was a man named Cory (who was AWESOME, but the way) who I called our “clap leader”. He would tell us when to clap and for how long. So when Wade was doing his intro in front of the curtain, we had NO idea what was going on (but we were able to see it when it was replayed for the live broadcast). We were just clapping because Cory was telling us to. My arms were about to fall off. But once the dance actually started, we clapped because we wanted to. It was an AWESOME routine, definitely in Wade’s style. He’s such a great dancer that even through there were many other talented dancers on stage, he definitely stuck out - there’s always that one dancer that your eye follows throughout the dance, and that was Wade. Wade’s dance was one of the main highlights of the night.

After that, we taped a segment of Wayne Newton singing - which they put together just the day before since Gloria Estefan cancelled for personal reasons. Cheryl Burke and Drew Lachey danced along, and it was interesting to watch not only their choreography, but also how the moving cameras were choreographed. There were a couple stationary cameras, but several that were operated by guys moving around the dancefloor - sometimes led by another person so they could watch the action the whole time. We taped that segment twice - it was hard to match the original enthusiasm from the first take.

After that, there was some time left before the live airing of the show. They let the audience on the dancefloor to get down. At the end, there was a dance contest, and several couples joined. There were some pretty good dancers, but my favorite was this 70ish couple. They were pretty smooth on the dance floor. Then the man dipped his wife, stuck his nose between her cleavage, and did the motorboat (nuzzling her cleavage really fast). The crowd went wild and everyone was hootin’ and hollerin’.  They were awesome!

Then, it was time for the live (on the east coast, anyway) show to start…

to be continued!

Tags: Travel, Reviews, Stories //