So I finally got my act together and helped plan a trip to go see The Price is Right. We watched the 1pm taping on June 9th.

The process is VERY long, and you end up waiting quite a long time. Let’s see, our day went kinda like this:
4:00am - G, A, and K waited outside the gates to CBS Studios. We were numbers 42-51ish.
6:00am - Pages came out and passed out “order of arrival” numbers. Unfortunately, we didn’t know about this and our 7 other friends who we told to come at 7:30 couldn’t get the same numbers. We ended up going back to the end of the line and picked up numbers in the 200s for them. They passed out the numbers and told us to come back around 7:45.
7:45am - We set foot inside the outdoor waiting area where there were lines of benches. They made some announcements and herded us to line up in the order of our arrival.
8:00am - After they managed to get everyone in their proper order, they started giving out “priority numbers” by writing numbers on our paper tickets. Depending on what show we wanted to watch (1pm or 4pm), they would give you a number for that show. Each showing had 325 seats.
Based on the number of group reservations and other studio tickets, they determined the number of people that are guaranteed to get in, and everyone else will be on the waiting list. Since we got there so early, we were in, although our friends had to brave the waiting list.
9:00am - They reshuffle people on the benches.
9:30am - They took our paper tickets with the numbers on them and handed us a small paper ticket with a printed number. We also filled out some basic information like our name, address, and SSN.
10:00am - They came down the line and checked our ID and gave us our handwritten name tags.
10:30am - They came down the line again and verified our IDs and proof of SSN (if we brought it). This is where they tore off part of the paper ticket that had our names on it.
11:00am - They came down the line and snapped a photo of each individual.
11:30am - They start taking groups of 12 at a time and line you up in front of the producer. The producer goes down the line and asks you your occupation and where you’re from. I suppose this is the part where they figure out if you’re TV material. This took a really long time as they had to talk to everybody.
12:45pm - They finally let us into the studio.
1:00pm - People are settled into their seats. They start playing some fun music to get the crowd dancing and singing. After a bit of time, they finally start the show!
I haven’t watched the episode yet, but it’s on my Tivo, and from what I could see on the monitors, my group definitely got a lot of camera time. We sat in the middle section only a few rows behind Contestants’ Row. Whee!
Scarf Girl, signing off.