NYC Tapings: The Daily Show with John Stewart

On ourfirst full day in New York we went to The Daily Show with John Stewart. They start handing out tickets to people who've already reserved tickets at 2:30. We showed up at about 1:30 and there was already quite a line ofF ople which made me pretty nervous. As I mentioned in my previous post, they overbooked these tapings, so I was a little worried that we might not get tickets. Luckily, the line of people behind us started to grow and made  me feel a little more at ease. A little after 2:30 they started handing out tickets and we were probably in the last group of 10-15 people they had tickets for. *whew*

After successfully obtaining our tickets we were told to return to the studio by 4:30. We took that time to hightail it to the TKTS booth in Times Square to try to snag some show tickets for after the taping. We were in luck, and were able to get tickets to an off-Broadway production of Avenue Q (more on that later).

We headed back to The Daily Show studio and were lined up in order of our ticket numbers. Before letting us into the studio a hipster looking girl made a few announcements about what we should expect as we headed in. We were to use the restrooms before entering the studio as once we were seated we would not be allowed to get up. Once we had relieved ourselves we were to proceed through security which was comprised of a bag check and metal detector. We were told that food, drinks, cameras, and mace/pepper spray wouldn't be allowed into the studio and would need to be left with security and picked up after the show. Hipster girl went on to say that before the show John would come out and answer a few audience questions. We were specifically told not to ask for autographs/pictures or ask creepy questions (ie: will you marry me?)

Once inside the studio we were allowed to take pictures of the studio with our phones. Of course we took an obligatory selfie with the Daily Show desk in the background. After what seems like hours but is probably more like 45 minutes a comedian came out to warm the audience up. He taught us how to cheer and laugh loudly which is very important for us to do since "there is no laugh track" and we were it. We were then instructed to put our phones away and keep them there for the remainder of the taping.

As hipster girl promised, John came out be for the show started and answered a few audience questions...none of which were interesting enough for me to remember. He then took his seat behind his desk and they started the show. Everything runs amazingly smoothly and quickly with very minimal pauses for the commercial breaks. Our guest was NY Yankee, Mariano Rivera which made for some fun banter between the two of them since John is a NY Mets fan.

Once the taping was over we were told to keep our phones away and were quickly ushered out of the studio. We were out of there by about 5:30 or 6. Just enough time for us to grab a quick bite to eat and hurry over to Avenue Q.

Check out my blog on our NYC preparations to see how we got in on this taping.