America’s Got Talent Chicago Audition Experience

The reviews and comments from the various audition cities are coming in. Check out the comments in previous posts to see other people’s experiences. Overall it seems like people are having a great great time and are really glad they auditioned for the show.

This was a really nice detailed experience which sheds some light on wait times you might expect if you’re getting ready for the America’s Got Talent New York Auditions.

Thanks for sending the experiences in. Hopefully people find these helpful and interesting. I know I’m completely fascinated by the experiences and process. It’s kind of like trying to see Oz behind the curtain.

America’s Got Talent Chicago Audition Experience
We went to the Chicago auditions on Sunday, March 1. We had a confirmed audition time of 2 PM but so did hundreds of others. From what I could gather, contestants had times of 8 AM or 2 PM and your place in line was entirely based on when you got there. No one there ever looked at the confirmation email. We got in line about 1 PM. My daughter’s actual audition took place about 10:15 PM; over 9 hours later. We spoke with a woman who’d arrived about 5 AM who completed her audition around 11:45 even though she was #5 and the auditions opened at 8 AM. I guess the first few hours were spent filming the outside shots and doing interviews. We were never involved in an outside shot in the afternoon. Good thing as it was really cold.

The guy who called out the numbers in the waiting room told me there were a total of 900 auditions on Sunday. My daughter had number XXXXX. We spend the first 4 hours or so waiting in line before getting registered. After we’d been herded down to the lobby area to complete the registration process, we sat in a large banquet room for hours with hundreds of others waiting to be called. In the morning and early afternoon I heard that singers were auditioned in groups of 10. At the end of the day they were being auditioned in groups of 20. Some groups had singers called back after the large group was done but it is hard to say if there really were second auditions on Sunday.

Once in the banquet room, performers were called out of the room in groups of 50 by number. A short time after numbers 600 to 650 had been called in for auditions, they decided to simply take all of the singers at once. That nearly cleaned out the room of performers as practically everyone was a singer. The remaining auditioners were considered variety and totaled less than 25. The large group of singers were taken together out of the banquet room into the lobby area. Once in the lobby, they were separated into 6 groups. Each group waited in line until they were taken back to an audition room. That process itself took over an hour. A guard told me there were about 6 audition rooms total with most being reserved for vocalists

When it was her turn to perform, I had to go into the room with her since she was a minor. The room was a small, carpeted conference room with a wooden floor set up in the center. It was a very good size for an act like ours. There were 3 people in the back of the room. One person was running the camera and another was definitely a judge. I’m not clear if the third was judging or simply there to operate the cd player or any other equipment needed for the performance. The (definite) judge was a friendly, attractive young woman and was very sympathetic about the late hour. Our act was 2:20 and she was allowed to complete it in spite of the 90 second limit. (I don’t know if anyone was NOT allowed to complete their song or act.) The judge told us she did an excellent job and clapped for her. It was nice to hear but not sure if it was significant. I asked her for any performance suggestions but she had none. It’s probably nothing that they do for auditions. She told us that the producers would look at all of the videos and that we would be contacted in 1 to 8 weeks if we were to receive a callback. Other people who auditioned right before us in the same room were told 6 to 8 weeks. And the website now states that performers will be contacted in the next 4 weeks. Go figure. Rumor has it that Chicago auditioners will be called back to New York City but it could be Miami.

It was a long day but my daughter thought it was fun and a good experience. Everyone around was friendly and interesting; especially the ventriloquist Alisha so it wasn’t all that boring. I’m sure we will see Alisha on the show.

A comment regarding a previous poster who auditioned in 30 minutes. The guy who called in the groups told me that Washington D.C. did not have the number of people auditioning that the other cities had. He thinks New York could be worse than Chicago.