Princess on the Road

Well kind of…

 

It’s Oprah’s 24th season and to celebrate she decides to shut down Michigan Avenue to have a street party.  The actual show taping doesn’t start until 5pm but the general public will be allowed in to the gated audience sections at 12pm and not before - according to oprah.com.  So I get to the party section of Michigan Avenue about 9.30 and already people are already being let in.  Oprah.com lies!  Since I wasn’t sure if once you were in you had to stay in, I decided to walk up and down the street to find where the best Oprah-viewing spot would be. 

 

There were six audience sections each with live big screens.  Audience section one and two were the best because they were right in front of the stage.  However, it didn’t look like these were open to the general public – rather only special people with special wristbands could get in. So, aside from mugging someone for their wristband it looked like section three was my best shot.   So after lining up and getting in, I wasn’t too happy when everyone was only allowed to go as far as section five.  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back from the stage.  Seriously, you couldn’t see shit.  So after waiting for four hours in shitty section five, the riff raff aka general public was allowed to proceed to section three.

 

Unfortunately, other general public had already been allowed into this area because they had participated in a stupid dance choreographed to the Black Eyed Peas (who were going to be guests on the show) song ‘I’ve got a feeling’.  Supposedly, their job was to teach the general public how to do the dance for show taping.  I refused to do the dance because 1. it was stupid, 2. it was highly dangerous doing mash potatoes when packed like sardines and 3. it was stupid.  For their efforts, they had been given wristbands (but not the same as the special wristbands to get to section one and two) and early entry into section three.  Naturally I tried pushing in front of these try-hards but to no avail – there was too many people and some of them had brought their own chairs (it was standing room only – no seating provided) which took up a shitload of space and made stealthy pushing in almost impossible.

 

Finally, 5pm arrived and after some minor technical difficulties, Oprah came out on stage.  Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!  Only I couldn’t see her.  The sound stage was right in front of Oprah’s stage between section two and three, effectively blocking the view of the general public.  Of course, everyone could watch on the live big screens but it just wasn’t the same.  You can sit in the comfort of your own home and watch Oprah on a screen.  So I’ll just have to make a return trip to Chicago to see her in the flesh.

 

Peace out.

 

This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 9:21 am and is filed under Random Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.