I started this 101 in 1001 journey back in April, and created my list of 101 things based on a bucket list I started back in 2004. Going to the Oprah show is something I've always wanted to do, but never in a million years could I truly visualize myself doing it. I put this on my 101 list, thinking, this will probably be the one thing I won't be able to do. It's so hard to get tickets, and I don't know how I'll ever pull it off, but a girl can dream, right? It was right around the time I started this challenge that Oprah announced that 2010/2011 was going to be her 25th and FINAL season of The Oprah Winfrey Show. I was a little discouraged knowing that I had even less time to make this dream come true, but I didn't let it hold me back completely.
I said to myself, "If I am going to make this happen, I am going to have to truly act on it, and do everything I possibly could to get to the show." My 101 in 1001 challenge motivated me beyond belief because I didn't want to look back on my list after 1001 days, and see #96 and think, "Well, I didn't get that one done, but I also never really tried either." The only way I knew how to get tickets was to go online to Oprah.com and request tickets through the "See the Show" section. I started requesting tickets almost immediately after starting this blog, and I would go on to the website every few days and submit my info for tickets. I checked the website and applied for tickets on a regular basis, except for over the summer, when they weren't filming the show. I would submit all my contact information, including 2000 words or less of why I wanted to be in the audience. I never heard anything back, but that didn't stop me from trying.
The morning of October 26th, 2010, I went on to Oprah.com as I had many times before, and under the "See the Show" section, there was a link that read, "Last Minute Reservations for 11/3, 11/4, and 11/5". I glanced at the calendar and realized this was the next week, but since I'd never heard a response before, I wasn't that hopeful, but in doing this 101 challenge, I've really developed a "What the heck?" mentality. So while I was well aware of the fact that the the last minute reservations meant I would be going to Chicago in one week, I requested the tickets anyway. I gave them all my information, including a paragraph about how going to the show is on my bucket list and I was nervous about not getting to do it, because it was the last season, blah, blah, blah. As usual, I didn't hear anything at all that day... or the next day.
But then on Thursday, 10/28, I got to work, opened my email and at 7:58am, I had received this email from the Oprah Show:
Hello!
We received your email regarding the 11/4 A taping and we have some limited availability for this show! The time commitment would be from 7:00am until 11:00am. If you are available to attend this taping, please respond to this email by 10/29 at 10:00am with the following information:
1. Your first and last name
2. Your email address
3. The first and last name of your guest (your guest must be at least 18 years of age)
4. Your primary phone number
If there are still seats available when we receive your email, you will be sent a confirmation sheet with all the details about attending this show. Please understand, you are NOT confirmed until you receive this confirmation email from us.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have already attended a show this season (since September 2010) as the lead of a party OR the guest of a party, then you are NOT eligible for these reservations. Do not reply to this email if you have attended already.
Thanks!
-The Audience Team
Obviously, I was beyond excited, because I had never gotten any communication in response to my requests before. When I was reading this email, it was already 8:26am, and almost a full half-hour had passed. I was for sure that I was too late, but thought, "What the heck?" and replied anyway. I sent back my name, email, my guest's name, Brittney Crary, and my phone number. After replying to that email, every new email I received after that sent me into a total tizzy. Every time my computer made a little ding noise, I jumped out of my chair. After two hours, I settled down and faced the reality that most likely, nothing was going to happen!
Miracle of all miracles, just three hours later, I received this response:
You and your guest are now confirmed for the 11/4 A taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show with the talk show hosts. Attached is a confirmation which provides all the information you will need to attend the taping. Please read through the confirmation thoroughly. If for any reason you need to cancel your reservations or change your guest’s name, please email us right away.
See you on 11/4 at 7:00am!
-The Audience Team
That day, we booked airline tickets online with United Airlines. I had about 29,000 air miles, and it was 25,000 miles to get to Chicago. Brittney also had air miles and we individually booked our tickets, but were still able to book the same flights to Chicago, and get seats together on 2 of our 3 flights. Our plane tickets cost us $7.50 each. That's it! I truly believe it was a small miracle how things were starting to come together.
The next day, we went to Priceline.com and booked a hotel room, using the "Name Your Own Price" feature, where you pick the area of the city you want to stay in, how much you want to spend and a star rating for the hotel. We wanted to stay in Downtown Chicago, spend no more than $75 total, and of course wanted a 3-4 star hotel. Another small miracle was when our offer of $60 for a 3-4 star hotel was accepted by the Hyatt Regency Chicago on Wacker Ave, minutes from Michigan Ave, the Magnificent Mile. Things were working out sooo perfectly.
Getting the time off work together was also a cinch because it happened to be a slow time at the office, and our boss, Brittney's Uncle Jim, was really excited for us, and knew what a big deal this was.
We had all of our plans made, the only thing left to do was eagerly await our departure date, which seemed to take forever to arrive even though it was only 5 days away.
fast forward to wednesday, november 3rd...
8:00am We arrive at work for a half day at the office before heading out early to catch our flight that evening.
11:18am I triple check the time on three different clocks, because I am 100% sure that time has either A) stopped completely or B) is going in reverse.
2:30pm Time to leave for the airport!! Woo hoo! Brittney and I change our clothes, jump in the car and head out to the airport. We drive out to Park & Fly to begin our big adventure.
3:45pm We are through security, waiting for our 5:09 flight to depart.
5:09pm We are finally Oprah Bound! Heading to Chicago by way of Denver.
8:30pm (Denver time) We land in Denver, about 15 minutes early, thank goodness! Takes us a while to taxi to our gate, but we finally get off the plane, and have about 20 minutes to find a restroom, get food and find our gate. We did it, and arrived at our gate just in time to walk right onto the plane.
Thursday, November 4th, 2010
12:45am (Chicago time) We arrive at O'Hare, which was completely shut down for the evening. Nothing is open, there isn't a soul in sight. Because we had to check in at Harpo Studios at 7am, we didn't get a hotel room for the night. We wander aimlessly around the terminal for a few minutes, waiting for everyone from our flight to disappear. One of the electronic boards in the terminal actually showed a promo ad for Oprah's 25th Farewell Season in Chicago. We took a bazillion pictures, obviously!
1:15am We settle down on two benches at Gate C24 to try and get some rest. We work backwards from 7am to figure out where we need to be and when, and calculate we need to start getting ready at 3:15 am, so we could leave the airport by 4am. That gives us two hours to "sleep." Right.
3:15am Our alarms go off, which was somewhat unnecessary considering neither of us slept a wink. We head into the Women's bathroom, which had just been cleaned and we literally unpack and take over.
We changed our clothes, re-did our make-up and hair, and walked out of the bathrooms looking a trillion times better than had when we first walked in. We are ready for our close-up!
4:00am Head out to the CTA train station to catch the Blue Line L Train to Downtown Chicago.
4:30am Finally sitting on the train! We are deliriously tired, but we are beyond excited and ON OUR WAY!
5:10am We arrive in Downtown Chicago, get off the train and walk about 6 blocks to our hotel. We pass two Starbucks stores, and neither one is even close to being open.
5:25am We get to our hotel, leave our bags with the Bell Desk, and head out to find breakfast and the bus to to Harpo Studios. It's pitch dark in the city, the only people out and about are people heading to work. We are exhausted, ecstatic, starving and wandering the streets of Chicago. It sounds really crazy, and it was. But we were not total idiots. I had my Chicago guide book with detailed maps, printed directions from Google Maps & Trip Planner, my smart phone with Google Maps and Navigation, and most importantly, the Find a Starbucks app.
5:50am We get to a large business/office building with a Starbucks inside of it, but the building doesn't open to the public until 6am. We decide to wait because it would probably be faster than trying to find another Starbucks a couple blocks away. Plus, our bus stop is right outside the same building.
5:59am A very nice man opens the building a minute early for us, and we rush into Starbucks to get our drinks and our breakfast sandwiches. We make instant friends with the baristas as we tell them, that no, we're not headed to work, we're going to OPRAH! They were super fast and efficient and we were out of there by 6:08 am
6:10am We are sitting at the bus stop waiting for the #20 bus to arrive. According to my Trip Planner on my ChicagoWay phone app, the bus should be arriving at 6:14am.
6:16am The bus is two minutes late. To freak out, or not to freak out? That is the question.
6:17am We see the bus in the distance and settle down. Whew. It stops for us, and we get on board.
6:35am We get to our stop, and as we stand up to get off the bus, it's still pitch dark outside, and while I know for sure this is our stop, I am still hesitant. A nice man sitting across from us, takes one look at us, nods his head and says, "Oprah" as if to say, "Yes girls, this is your stop, have a good time." We have to walk one block up and one block over, and even though it's pitch dark, Harpo is glowing brightly!
6:38am We are officially inside Harpo Studios, in line waiting to get inside the studio! We can hardly believe we are finally here! We get a quick picture while we're standing in line, minutes before Oprah's staff says, "No pictures!" Oops.
6:49am Coat check!
6:50am I am handing my ID to the girls at the Harpo Studios reception counter and they check us in and give us each a blue waiver form with a number on it, which is our ticket into the studio. I believe we were numbers 136 and 137.
6:52am Time for security check! The security check at the Oprah show was more intense than airport security. We went through a metal detector and surrendered our purses for a full inspection. Literally, there were about 4-5 women inspecting everyone's bags and pulling everything out to check it. Our purses were too big and full to take in, so we had to check them. Also, there are absolutely no phones or cameras allowed in the studio, so after giving up my purse, I had no sense of time. Everything was a complete blur after this point.
We were shuttled upstairs to a waiting area for a long time. We had to read and sign our blue waiver forms, agreeing to be on TV, and allowing Oprah and Harpo to use our faces on TV. We also had to take a survey. It was Bob Greene's Motivational Survey... how motivated were we to lose weight, get healthy and get in shape? It made no sense at the time, but we did as we were told. The waiting room was filled with giant pictures of Oprah and some of her most famous guests (John Travolta, Bill Clinton, the Sex and the City girls, etc). There was also memorabilia from over the years too. The time we waited seemed to take forever, and go every fast at the same time. We made friends with two girls sitting next to us, and marveled at some of the crazy people they let in to see the show. There was a group of 4 women, 20-30 years older than us, all dressed in red, one of which who went around the entire waiting room and taught everyone a cheer for Oprah, complete with hand motions. She was totally nuts, but I was convinced the producers were going to love her and she and her friends would end up in the front row, which kind of irritated us.
Finally, everyone was in the waiting room, and things were about to get started. Someone came over the loud speaker around 8:15am and said that we they were going to start seating us in the studio in groups based on the number on our blue waiver form. But before they called in the number groups, they were going to call a couple of parties by name. She started calling groups by name and we had no idea what that meant. She probably called 5 groups by name, then paused, called another 5 groups and paused again. She comes over the loud speaker a third time, and calls a few more names, before saying, "Laura Magdalen party." We still have absolutely NO IDEA why my name got called, but we jumped out of our seats and went downstairs.
We were right inside the studio doors, when someone told us to stand to the side because they weren't quite ready for us. We watched as a ton more women and the occasional man filed in to the studio ahead of us. I was kind of freaking out as I watched all these people walk in and get seats ahead of us.
Finally, a producer or whoever, says, "Okay, we're ready for you!" We formed a single file line and headed into the studio! It was so incredibly exciting to finally see a studio we'd been watching on TV for years. We are taking it all in, when suddenly we are being ushered to our seats at the front of the studio. Our escort points to us and to our seats, and we are speechless, shocked, flabbergasted, in complete disbelief and more because we have been seated in the front row, right in the center of the stage. Oprah’s chair is only about 8 or 10 feet away. Brittney and I, along with all the people around us are freaking out. We have absolutely no idea why we were in the front row. It didn’t really seem like we were selected based on what we were wearing, although we’d worn bright colors, like our confirmation had suggested. The set decoration was mostly blue, and fairly plain, so it’s not like we matched the set or anything. It was beyond crazy and exciting. Oh, and the annoying lady who was running around the waiting room teaching everyone the Oprah cheer that she'd made up? She was sitting in the very back of the studio.
Finally, a warm-up producer came out to start things off. Music started blasting and everyone was cheering, singing and dancing! It was a blast! The lady sitting next to Brittney got pulled up on stage and she got her groove on. It was so fun and so hilarious.
After that, we settled down, and the producer, who's name, I believe was Sally Ann, or something like that, started to tell us what the show was about. This entire time so far, we are thinking we were seeing the taping of the former talk show hosts, because my email confirmation had said, "You and your guest are now confirmed for the 11/4 A taping of The Oprah Winfrey Show with the talk show hosts." The was also something on Oprah.com about an upcoming show where Oprah was going to catch up with Phil Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael, Ricki Lake, Montel Williams and Geraldo. So when my email said that, I was convinced that was the show we were going to.
So when the producer said that Dr. Oz was there, we were like, "what?!" Apparently, we were at a taping with the talk show hosts that were going to have shows on Oprah's new network, OWN. The show we were there for was being filmed for January 2011, and had a "new year, new you" theme. Dr. Oz was appearing to talk about taking care of your health, Bob Greene was there to talk about taking care of your body, Peter Walsh was there to talk about taking care of your home, your space and getting organized, and finally Adam Glassman, O Magazine's fashion editor was there to talk about new trends for the new year! Very cool.
The audience got to ask questions too... Someone asked if Oprah had filmed her "Favorite Things" show yet, and the producer said, "I don't know! I am never here, so I don't really know!" She was clearly playing it off. Another person asked it Oprah was planning to give anything to her audience today, and again the producer played dumb and pretended not to know anything.
Finally, from the side of the stage, through a small entrance, Oprah and her posse emerged! I was completely starstruck! She was beautiful, even though she had on a boatload of makeup. She was definitely smaller and skinnier in person than I though she would be. She had on a great outfit, and was wearing black pants, with an ivory silk blouse and a gorgeous black sparkly sweater that the blouse showed through. She was carrying her shoes in her hand, which we kind of knew she did pretty often. The heels were awesome, but looked really uncomfortable, they were at least 4 inches high, and while she sat in her chair, her wardrobe assistant put her shoes on for her and adjusted her clothes to get her ready. At one point, someone from the audience called out, "I like your shoes!" and Oprah made a comment about only sitting and standing, not really walking around, because they weren't all that comfortable.
The other funny thing was that, when her wardrobe assistant was fussing over her and her clothes, Oprah said, "This is what happens when you get rich. You are suddenly unable to dress yourself. I used to do this everyday, all by myself, but when I got rich, I couldn't do it anymore." It was almost like she was making fun of herself. We could also kind of tell she was getting annoyed about being fussed over. One of her eyes wouldn't stop watering and it was "ruining" her makeup, so her makeup guy came out to fix her up, and Oprah told us that he was the same guy who did the First Lady's makeup. I said, "Wow!" really loudly, and she looked over at me, and made eye contact and smiled.
Some of the seats near us were saved for "special guests" who were appearing during the Dr. Oz and Peter Walsh segments. A woman who had really high blood pressure was there to be featured during Dr. Oz's segment. She got really high blood pressure from holiday stress.
Dr. Oz was a lot skinnier in person too. He was really fun to watch, because he's really animated. He also brought fun props and made a giant mess on the stage, which he later apologized to the stage crew for making. They cleaned up in between segments, and Dr. Oz said, "Sorry about the mess!" He was so polite.
There was a couple sitting on the other side of Brittney who had Peter Walsh come to their house to help them get organized. They showed footage of Peter going to their house to get things in order, using bins and containers from, where else, The Container Store! As we were watching the footage of the clean up, I said out loud, "Container Store!" And Oprah and Peter looked down at me, and nodded, and Oprah made eye contact with me again and said, "Yes, Container Store!" A few minutes later, Oprah gave her entire audience $100 gift cards to The Container Store. We flipped out and went crazy! Awesome! It wasn't a new car, but I love The Container Store, so we were thrilled!
After Peter, Adam Glassman came out with three models to talk about the new fashion trends for 2011. He showed off a down parka from Eddie Bauer, Sorel boots, and a button down blouse called, "The Shirt" that doesn't gape in the front, because it's engineered with two sets of buttons. It was really cool, and I'd never seen anything like it!
They stopped filming for a few minutes, for the "commercial break", and then three more models came out and showed off three more things... a soft, lightweight scarf that is so large it can be used as a blanket, a new accessory called a Chickie that is a new version of a Dickie, and can be clipped to your bra under a low cut shirt to prevent too much cleavage. It's a great alternative to a tank top or shirt under your blouse, dress, or sweater, and a new kind of tights that are called Bootights, that are half tights, half socks, and meant to wear with a dress or skirt and tall boots. They were really cool.
We took another break for "commercial time" and when they started taping again, Oprah announced that she was giving the audience all of the new year trends! The jacket, the boots, the shirt, the scarf, the Chickie, the tights. We went nuts! Everyone was on their feet, screaming, cheering, crying, you name it! It kind of felt like Oprah's Favorite Things at that point! we were ecstatic!!
That was the end of the show too! The taping wrapped up in the midst of us going absolutely crazy! It was awesome!
Oprah stayed a few minutes longer and talked to us for a little bit, although now, it's hard to even remember what she said exactly, because we had gone to Cloud 9. She thanked us for watching her show, for being so loyal and for being part of the success of her show. She said she appreciated everything we did to get there, driving in, flying in, getting new hairdos, etc and she wanted to thank us for that by rewarding us with gifts. It was awesome.
She left shortly afterward and more Oprah staff came out to explain how we would get our gifts. We were all going to be issued vouchers to redeem our gifts in our size and color preference. So awesome.
Finally, it was time to go... we filed (floated?!) out of the studio and got in line to claim our purses, coats and goodie bags. We went outside and took lots of pictures outside of the studio and went over to the Oprah Store to look around and get a souvenir for the experience.
We ate lunch a little restaurant right across the street called Flat Top Grill, which was a "Create your own stir fry" kind of place. It was delicious, and while we were there, we met a group who had been at our Oprah taping, it was three women, and one of the women's husband. The husband was actually the one who'd gotten tickets for everyone. In talking with them, we learned that one of the women had actually been to the Oprah show SEVEN times. The shows that she had attended before that day were all very depressing though. She got some of the saddest shows Oprah's ever done before, including the school principal who left her 2-year old daughter in the car and accidentally killed her, the Craigslist rape victim and the woman who was imprisoned in Iran. She also said that this was the first time in all seven times she'd been that Oprah had given the audience gifts. We were really surprised. We thought Oprah gave something to all of her audiences but that was not the case! We felt sooo unbelievably lucky and blessed.
All in all, it was such an amazing experience to share with my best friend. Going to Oprah, sitting in the front row, getting amazing and fun gifts was all so wonderful and a complete dream come true!
If you have questions about this experience or there is something I might have missed, post a comment on this blog, and I'll answer all the questions in a follow up blog post. Also, as soon as I know when our episode airs, I'll let you know! :)
WOW so cool!!!!!
ReplyDeleteVery cool experience for you! Thanks for taking the time to blog about it - I felt as if I were there with you for the trip!
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