America's Got Talent ♥ PDX style

My lovely singing friend DeeAnna alerted me that America's Got Talent was going to be in PDX today.  She actually won tickets to the front of the line on the radio.  Even a sinus infection (me) and a lack of sleep (warren) could not stop us!  We went to Xfactor and this time the audition came to us.

Now one of the main keys for this whole audition thing is to arrive early!  I did go to the America's Got Talent audition the last time they were in PDX a couple of years ago.  We arrived at about 4:30 a.m. and there were about 50 or 60 people in line already.  Since I was sick this week, I wanted to get some sleep before the audition (I also had a bazaar during the rest of the day).  We arrived at 5 a.m. today and were number 7 and 8 in line!  

Yup, we thought it was just the security, but there is the beginning of the line!

Thumbs down Portland, why don't you ever show up to auditions?  How are we ever going to get shows to audition in our city if nobody ever shows up?  People were supposed to line up at 6 a.m. and even then there was still only a handful of people waiting.  (At other auditions, you have to get there a couple hours earlier than 5 a.m. to be anywhere near the front of the line, which is exactly where you want to be so you don't have to wait around all day to audition.)  To be honest, I'm sure you could roll into this audition anytime later in the day and not have any issue auditioning or worrying about a line.  BUT you don't want to count on this being the case.  It seems to vary A LOT depending on the city you are auditioning in.  And if you trying out for another show I would expect to have to deal with larger crowds.

 
And for the first time, we ended up in the first audition group!  I have to give major props to AGT.  They were super organized and super nice, especially when compared to some other auditions that I've been to *cough*cough* (X Factor and American Idol).  Did the fact that there were way less people to manage help?  Definitely, but AGT went out of their way to be considerate of the people waiting in line.  The brought us inside very early so we could wait out of the cold and rain.  They also kept things moving and I didn't feel like there was a lot of wasted time.

After we lined up inside, we filled out release forms.  Next, we had to go through security.  Warren and I were miked to get ambient sounds and taped going through the line (another first) and chatted with a producer (another first).  They say to wear colorful clothing on the website and I would recommend it--I think it's part of the reason we got noticed.  They take you back in groups of 20 to audition.  We were called in numerical order and three of us auditioned together in a room with a producer and a camera man.  They videotape your audition which makes sense--they can see how you look on camera and go back and look over tape to decide who to callback.  I heard that you don't hear back until March if they are interested, but I don't know if this is true or not.  I was just so happy I finally saw significant improvement in my audition, even though I prepped less!

 See the guy in the hat?  He was our audition buddy!  We all auditioned in the same room together.

Are you going to try out for AGT?  Let me know how it goes!  Happy singing honeybees :)