Tips For Being on ‘The Ellen Show’; (Part 2)

If you follow me on Instagram, then you already know I had the incredible (and lucky) experience of returning to The Ellen Show, the other day. It was as magical as ever, (maybe even more so), so I wanted to write a part 2 to my original post for a few reasons. A.) I have some more helpful tips and info for you, B.) This time I had the ‘stand-by-ticket’ experience, and C.) My initial post was already pretty lengthy for me, so that brings us here.

Stand-by is a different experience than having guaranteed tickets, but regardless, it was just as radical. My sweet friend Megan (who doubles as my ‘Ellen’ cohort), scored these stand-by tickets, and for a MILLIsecond, considered not rolling the dice and going. Obviously not going was never a real option, as long as I had anything to say about it. Our group of 4 are all moms, (13 kids between us!), and we quite literally moved mountains to (maybe) attend this taping. We forced husbands to miss work, we missed our kids birthdays, we divided our kids between friends and relatives, we bribed, begged and most importantly, we freakin’ rallied.

If you want the nitty-gritty details of what the entire day of an Ellen taping is like, then I recommend reading my first post, as I give a play-by-play of what to expect. In fact, I followed my own recipe and wound up being a selected audience member, again! Like the last time, we didn’t have any audience-participation games on our show, but I was selected to audition for Ellen’s new game show, ‘Game of Games’. So if you do have a desire to be on TV, or potentially play a game on-air with Ellen, I can attest that my own advice does in fact work.

Anyway, in an attempt to keep this as quick and readable as possible, here are some new tips and suggestions for you, (some specifically geared toward Stand-By ticket holders):

1. First and foremost, if you wind up with Standby tickets, for the love of pizza, GO! Don’t worry or stress over the uncertainty; just go. (And get there early).
2. STAY GRATEFUL. I don’t care if you are the very last people to check in, and you’re almost positive you won’t be seated in the audience; an attitude of gratitude goes FAR. Either way, you will get to sit in the Riff Raff room, and come back with Guaranteed tickets to a later show.
3. If you are standby, your group might get split up–just roll with it! Is it ideal? Maybe not, but any of the other stadbyers who end up in the Riff Raff room would gladly trade positions with you, (not to mention the millions of people watching at home). 
4. If they can only seat 1 person from your group, let them. Here’s why: Initially, we did not make it in to the studio. We were literally the next in line, but we were out; or so we thought. They told us they had one seat, and we could either pick someone from our group, or let another group behind us have it. We forced Megan to go in, since she got us the tickets. Here’s the kicker; they came back and offered us one more seat–Emma went in. Nyki and I were O-U-T, out. We were ready to make the most of it, when BAM! At the very last minute, they sat us both! About 50 people behind us in the Riff Raff room, watched as we spastically ran up the stairs on to the Ellen set.  Can you imagine if we had passed?! Lesson of the day: NEVER say ‘no’ at Ellen.
5. Never underestimate Ellen’s guests!! We missed Oprah by one day, (which maybe was for the best, because I might have spontaneously combusted had I experienced Oprah AND Ellen simultaneously). Our guest was Bill Gates. We honesty weren’t sure what to make of that. But guess what? Bill Gates played a silly little game, and won our entire audience tickets to come back to the 12 Days of Christmas Giveaways!! (I died–No really, I think my heart stopped at that moment, and I definitely peed a little).

I hope you have found some of this helpful, and I seriously hope that you get the opportunity to experience a live taping of The Ellen Show, because it is absolutely everything it is cracked up to be. And I guess this means you can expect a ‘Part 3’ to this story, come December. You can also follow along to see if I make it on to Game of Games by signing up to receive blog post notifications, or following me on Instagram!

xo, Em

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