My American Idol Experience

Zach and I just got back from L.A. where we went to both Tuesday and Wednesday of American Idol!

I put mine and Zach's names on the waitlist for American Idol Tickets in January. On Thursday night I got an email saying tickets were available and I was able to get 4 tickets for Wednesday's finale. Zach got an email too and he got 4 tickets for Tuesday's show. We invited Zach's parents (who are lovely to travel with btw). Because we had vouchers we had to wait in line a long time. We were prepared for that though so we went pretty early and were easily able to get real tickets. We even got pretty good seats on the main level toward the back. I just really wanted to share my experience here because this is one of the most spontaneous things I've ever done, and will likely not do anything like this in the future.

Here are the highlights and the lowlights:

I had a minor meltdown on Tuesday. The people who organize tickets for American Idol were quite unprepared for the ticketing process. Usually the event is held at the Kodak theater, but this year it was at the Nokia theater, so the new venue had them scrambling. Plus the Nokia theater is almost double the size of the Kodak, so they were dealing with a lot more people. I hate crowds! Crowds are always hard for me . . .but I was so frustrated with the lack of organization that I kinda lost it. Thankfully the other Wilys are all quite mature and level-headed. They kept it together. By the end of Tuesday, I felt like we were all cattle, being shuffled from one line to the next.

On Tuesday, we had to attend the dress rehearsal before the show. They tape the entire dress rehearsal so they can edit the final package that shows the recap of the performances, even though the show is LIVE. There were only about 2000 people at the dress rehearsal instead of the the 7000 at the show, so we were sitting very close to the stage. The set is incredible!! It was really cool to see it in person. The producers were right next to us and Nigel Lythgow was a very busy guy. They have a stage director named Debbie who I can tell has a very stressful job that she is very good at. The best part of the dress rehearsal (besides the Davids' performances) is the fake judges. Simon, Paula, and Randy don't attend the dress rehearsal so they have 3 people who look like them from behind sit in their places and after each performance the fake judges do a critique. It is hilariously funny to watch them make fun of the real judges. The dress rehearsal was very interesting. I was blown away at the amount of work it takes to film a show and I could tell that AI has it down.



Ryan Seacrest is the best host on TV. No doubt about it. At the dress rehearsal and the show, he works his tail off. He is running all over the place. He has a security guard who runs after him everywhere and believe me, he needs one. People are calling out Ryan every 10 seconds and trying to touch him. It's nuts. Simon, Paula, and Randy however, do virtually nothing. They arrived about 2 minutes before the show went live and disappeared during a lot of the commercial breaks. Ryan is by far the MVP if you ask me, and has a load of charisma.



I'm so surprised to be saying that both David and David sing better in person. The show was unbelievable! They are immensely talented. Confession: There is a tiny part of me that has always wondered if I could do what they do. I no longer have any delusions about this. I absolutely can't. I'm not only talking about voice either, they both have so much charm! These people are special, I promise.

The show on Wednesday was phenomenal. It lacked the excitement of the competition that Tuesday's show had, but since there were lots of professionals there, it was very entertaining. The highlight for me was George Michael. I've always loved his voice and his album "Faith" is one of the best albums ever. He really is an odd person, but I like his music. I think David Archuleta should make an album like "Faith." It would suit him perfectly.

This has been quite a long post, so I will sign off for now. It was such a fun trip. I'm so grateful for Zach and his hard work that made it possible for us to pay for a trip out of the blue like this. It was so fun to be with him. I love him, I love him, I love him.

The Nokia wouldn't allow us to take cameras in--so these photos are borrowed from the world wide web.