Welcome to Pure America's Got Talent

Hello all! Back from Tuesday and Wednesday evening shows, I needed some time to digest everything before posting.

According to the warmup act America’s Got Talent started their tapings from Los Angeles… then moving north to Portland, Oregon… moving east to Dallas, Texas… then south to Orlando, Florida… heading back north to New York City and finally ending in Chicago! From these taped cities a small number of acts are sent to Las Vegas to be weeded down further and the lucky chosen will get their chance in the spotlight.

But I digress… let’s talk about what happened in the past couple of days!

First off… as expected those that called in for groups of twenty or more, have VIP access, or are fans of the acts that are being shown during the showing were seated first on the orchestra (ground) level. Everyone else ended up filling in what seats are left in the orchestra level and then most ended up seated in the balcony section of the theatre. Anyone else that showed up but were unable to get tickets online were welcome to stand in line and wait patiently until all those that have tickets have gone through first… and should there be seats remaining they let anyone else in to fill the top seats of the balcony (there were still seats available when they started taping on both nights).

Upon entering they did a bag check as well as wave you down with the metallic wand… There are places inside the theatre where one could go and purchase snacks and drinks (including alcoholic drinks), they were LONG shows. Show/taping started at 7:00pm and it began with the stage managers asking the audience to do a few takes of applause, a few takes of standing ovations and a few takes of boos. Once these are done there is a warmup act that fills in the dead time in between acts as the stage crew help with setup and dismantling of equipment.

Then comes the intro of the judges…. Piers had to come in twice at the taping on Tuesday due to technical difficulties… When Sharon headed towards the judges area she immediately kicked off her shoes and spent the rest of the evening barefoot… Howie (the David replacement) got a Howie chant as he entered the main area. On Wednesday instead of walking down the aisle, the judges came from the backstage area.

Finally it was time to start the first act….

In total there were fourteen acts on Tuesday and seventeen acts on Wednesday, after about half of the acts went first, then there was an intermission where the warmup act had people come up and put on a mini-talent show and then we saw the remaining acts for the evening. The tapings ended anywhere between 10:00pm and 11:00pm depending on length of time per act (from walking on stage to walking off stage after judgement).

There was a decent variety of acts… from bands to duos, circus acts and magicians, from pop to opera to rap… There was even some oddities that will undoubtedly make it into various montage scenes. We got to see acts of loyalty and acts of defiance. We saw someone overstep their bounds and were immediately put down by the judges (even Howie got in on the action!).

Howie Mandel is undoubtedly the “nice judge” this year. He used his buzzer the least while Piers and Sharon tied for most. He gives compliments and sugar coats criticism… unless the act was so bad that he couldn’t find anything good about it. There seems to be very good chemistry between the judges, Piers jumping on Howie with a “Howie? Deal, or No Deal?” whenever Howie talks to much and hasn’t gotten to the point yet.

In special cases Nick would intervene to either help out an act if he feels the judges were unnecessarily harsh or confront an act should they overstep their bounds. Nick seems to be very comfortable with the judges if he’s willing to push them if necessary.

Just after intermission on Tuesday night Nick did some tapings from the balcony that had to be retaken due to the audience interrupting once or twice or thrice.

So there are some ideas of what happened during the evening tapings of America’s Got Talent. Did anyone else go to the various tapings throughout the U.S.? If so what are your impressions of the tapings?