Acquiring tickets for The Rachael Ray Show was even easier than for The Chew. For The Chew, I had to frequently visit a website in search for available tickets. For RR, I only had to send an email of interest and they emailed me when dates were available.
When finally their dates matched up with my free dates, I set up our second live audience experience, on Kristina’s birthday. (Don’t worry, I asked her first! It was certainly a fun way to celebrate turning 30!).
On this particular day, Rachael Ray was filming three different episodes. We attended the last episode of the day at 3:15 pm. We got into the city around 1:30 pm and planned to find the studio and then wander around until a line started to form. (For The Chew, the line started forming less than an hour before we needed to be in line). Thinking we wouldn’t need to be in line until 2:15ish, I figured we would go have coffee and then wander over to the line.
At 1:45 pm, the line was already longer than both the ‘Priority’ and the ‘Group A’ lines from The Chew. What was much nicer than The Chew’s line was that there were already RR staff members outside directing us where to go and ensuring that no one was going to be cut in line.
When we were finally brought inside, we were left in a room with much more seating than The Chew. We were also given Sara Lee muffins and fancy bottled water (So fancy, I forgot the name).
Coincidentally, one of the guests on the show that day was Clinton Kelly, one of the hosts of The Chew. It was interesting to see him outside of his own studio promoting his new show, Love at First Swipe. In this show, he and Devyn Simone give not only a makeover of someone’s look, but also a makeover of their online dating profile.
The first segment RR shot was one that was missing from the previously recorded show. She interviewed Nikki Reed of Sleepy Hollow, then quickly changed jackets and shot the segments for the following day’s episode. We left with the second season of Sleepy Hollow and copies of the book, Better.*
*We were a little bummed to hear that audience members of an episode shot only a few days before ours left with vacation packages in celebration of RR’s 10th wedding and show anniversary.
When compared to The Chew, the filming for The Rachael Ray Show seemed to have a stronger sense of urgency in getting the segments completed. The show itself is more focused on interviews and quick cooking segments, with little to no audience participation aside from applause. The focus was about getting the segments done, and covering the material that needed to be covered. I suppose by the third taping of the day, that kind of work ethic makes sense. The Chew similarly had to run in a productive order, breaking for commercials and sticking to specific timing, but overall they seemed more relaxed in what they were doing. After The Chew was over, the stars hung around for a few minutes, a few of them even posing for selfies with audience members. When Rachael Ray was finished, RR posed for a quick photo with the entire audience and then apologized by saying she had to run to a fundraiser held by her pal, Tony Bennett.
A likely story, Rach.*
*I’m kidding. We actually saw her car leaving the parking garage as we were exiting the building. I tried, but I was too slow to catch a picture.
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