DWTS experience

Back in December I was the highest bidder for a charity auction hosted by Marlee Matlin. Included in the prize was Dancing with the Stars tickets. Needless to say I was excited. A great cast and a well received show. I took a friend of mine who is a huge DWTS fan. She thought it was amazing!!
We stayed with some friends in Pasadena for the weekend.
Fast forward to day of the show and we navigate the freeways of Los Angeles. We park the car. As we walk to the gate we see these huge lines of people snaked around the sidewalks. I'd guess in the neghborhood of 150 people. I was worried that we would have to be in those lines. I asked someone what the line was for. Of course, I gasped. However there was a page there. I said we had reseved seats and she pointed us to a back VIP gate. There the line was shorter. I breathed a sigh of relief. As we passed through the gate they checked our names off. We walked past got our Ids checked and found the check in stand. Yet another line but again short. Now the waiting game begins.
They told us we had assigned seats so we were safe. As we stood in line the weather was gorgeous and we of course people watched. It was fun being a VIP per se.
Finally we get in and found our seats. Miraculously they were third row seats. Prime seats for all the action no bad sight lines to speak of.
We could not bring in cameras or cell phones so no pictures.
They had a dude from England doing the hosting of the crowd. He was funny and entertained the crowd quite well. Our surprise musical guest was Melissa Ethridge. She sang her heart out. For me that was the highlight of show. They had to tape her second number twice. It is remarkable that they can perform that, edit the tape and have it ready for a live show!! In between the numbers they had contests with crowd particpation and interaction. It was quite entertaining. I still loved Melissa's performances!!
Finally we were live on national tv. We had to applaud a lot so we could not hear what Tom and Brooke were saying. The dancers were great. They are amazing athletes. They started with ochocinco and his dancer. They were good yet he looked stiff.
Sam Neil and a couple of co stars from the show Happy Town were a couple of rows in front of me.
It was a great experience to say the least!!

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