how we scored snl tickets

I told you in the last post that we got up at 3:00 on Saturday morning. We managed to pull ourselves from our cozy bed and into the dark, cold, and wet streets of New York. For a good reason. We wanted to see Saturday Night Live so bad. More than a Broadway show. Each August, 1,500 people are given tickets to see SNL. They don't get to choose the show date or whether it's a dress rehearsal or live show. Our schedules and budget just don't work like that right now, so we decided to try and get standby tickets to the most difficult show to get tickets to in NYC. The only way to do this is line up outside Rockefeller Center the Saturday morning before a show and hope for the best.

We were on the street by 4:00 that morning. We had several things going for us. 1) We were out there early. They don't begin giving out tickets until 7:00, so we were right behind the people who camped out. 2) The host was Melissa McCarthy, you know, from Bridesmaids. She's hilarious, but she's also no Justin Timberlake. And the musical guest was Lady Antebellum. 3) It was the first cooler day in the city, and it was raining. We were out there for four hours under an umbrella. Granted, we met a really nice Canadian woman, named Kelly, who made the time pass. We were also able to see the sun rise and New York come to life.

When we got there, Jason counted approximately 85 people in line before us. If there had been over 100, I wasn't going to stay. Each of those people had to choose between the dress rehearsal or the live show. By the time we were at the front, almost equal amounts of people had chosen between the two options, so we went for the live show. We didn't want to cut dinner short, so we took a chance.

After dinner, we lined up at 10:30 in numerical order. Jason was 44 and I was 45. We learned that afternoon on a NBC Studio Tour that the studio only held around 330 people. I was hopeful, but also realistic. The staff made sure everyone knew you weren't actually "in" until your butt was in a seat. They took the first 20 people through security. Then 20 more. Then we were allowed to go through with the next group. We were lined up outside Studio 8H with wristbands. They said six more people could go through, and I was number six.

Our butts were in seats! We were in the last row on a cushioned bench with our backs against the wall. However, seemingly bad seats were actually good. We were able to see most of the skits. It was an amazing experience, and watching SNL will never be the same for us. We watched the episode on Hulu when we came home and a couple who was behind us that morning got front row tickets. They were actually on camera during some of the skits. Sort of thankful for my last row tickets, especially after having been up for another 22 hours that day.