My Standby Line Experience

I wanted to share a little about my personal experience in the standby process this week! I know there’s been posts like this before but hopefully you’ll find something useful in here if you choose to read.

If there’s one main message to take: don’t let the form fool you - if it doesn’t let you submit, refresh and try again, at least that worked for me this time around.

I was sat at my desk working when I noticed it was three minutes to 10am EST on Thursday and thought it might be fun just to try submitting the form to see what number I get (I tried once before in October and did not make it in with original number around 120 and secondary number around 78)

I click the link to enter the form as soon as the clock hit 10:00:00 EST. I autofill all of my information in, select 1 ticket for Live show and hit submit - then the form crashes.

I quickly refreshed and filled it all in again and hit submit and to my surprise I got a confirmation email instantly saying stay tuned for your number.

I thought to myself that I’d have no hope for a good number due to having to fill out the form twice, but a couple hours later I get another email in my inbox with something along the lines of “Congratulations, you are number 7!”

I was shocked. I quickly ran back to work, spoke with my supervisor whom I had only known for a week as we were seven days in to a ten day long gig, and she offered to cover for me so I could go to the show.

I got off work at 12:00am, went home, quickly packed, and made it to the airport for 3:30am for my 5:00am flight. After a layover in Toronto I landed at LGA at 3:00pm with just enough time to check in to a hotel, get bundled up in warm winter gear and head to the standby line.

I arrived pretty early before the 7:00pm check in deadline and stood waiting for the first ID check so I could set up my chair and settle in for the few hours.

Only two girls showed up ahead of me, they were originally numbers 5 & 6 meaning everyone who was 1 through 4 did not show up leaving me at the end of the night with #3.

I want to shout out the two girls who made my night extremely enjoyable. If you happen to see this by chance - thank you so much for making my night so memorable. It is something I’ll remember forever! I had such a great time talking with both of you and sharing the whole experience. Hopefully we will run into each other again sometime!

I took one break during the Friday night lineup portion to run inside to the bathroom and then around the corner to Chick Fil A.

Saturday night came and again I arrived much earlier than needed. I was placed in my waiting spot at the NBC gift shop where it was incredibly hot and uncomfortable. Still worth it obviously for what was coming.

We were brought through security. Waited there for a while, then brought up the stairs, waiting there for a while, and then finally around 11pm or so we were guided by the Peacock lounge and into the elevators.

Once we got inside the elevators our numbers no longer seemed to matter within our group of 10. They just sat us based on how quickly we were able to get out of the elevator and down the hall.

The two girls I spent the standby liken process were seated in the far right corner of the balcony and I was lucky enough the get a second row aisle seat in the balcony very close to home base.

The house band played for a while, I could have listened to them for hours. Then came Marcello with a short and sweet “here’s where the exits are” and thanking the whole crew speech. One of the highlights of the night for me came next - Veronika & Tommy’s cover of Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy. This was an absolute perfect lead in to the show.

Once they finished the setup for the cold open began and everything went so fast from there. One thing that I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of all night: Lorne Michaels. Watching him observe the sketches and interacting with the cast in between was something so special.

Happy to answer anyone’s questions about the process anytime. And hopefully I’ll be able to make it back again someday for another show.