Sorry I haven’t been doing much blogging lately, life and work have been keeping me busy!
Last week, I attended a taping of the comedy series shown on CTV – “Comedy Now“. I’ve never been to a live taping before and thought it would be pretty neat to experience it. There were 2 tapings each night (7pm/9pm) and we decided to go to the later of the two. The venue was the MTV building (Yonge/Church – across the street from Canadian Tire). These shows were free and on a first-come, first-served basis.
We arrived approximately an hour before and the long line up was on Yonge Street. Fortunately, I had managed to get a couple of guest passes so we entered through the side doors. There we waited until approx 8:45 pm as more people arrived – it began to get a little crowded. We were then led into the ‘lobby’ of the building and waited there for another 15-20 mins until the prior taping was finished. After the audience was cleared from the first show, we were allowed to go through the doors and horded down a narrow aisle draped in black cloth with rooms off to the side where a couple of people were sitting in front of several tiny monitors.
They insisted on making us move to the end of the seating rows, but several people just sat down in the middle, so it was a case of trying to get around them. Being guests, we were able to sit in floor seats but when the other line up was let in, they filled the remainder of the floor and also the balcony area. If going to one of these comedy tapings and know you are only going to stay for one, you’d be better off sitting in the balcony as you’re able to leave once the first comic is done. For the taping, you are not allowed to get up to go to the washroom, this was made clear at the beginning before going into the show.
Each comic did an hour-long show, with pauses in between to fix hair, makeup, sweat beads that may have formed, make sure there’s no dust or flakes on clothes, etc. These breaks I found to affect the flow of the comedy routine of the comic, but the comic seemed to enjoy the attention and made light of the whole thing.
The show we attended started quite late (supposed to be 9pm but ended up nearer 9:45/10pm). As a result of this, we didn’t get out of there until 11:30 pm or so, which was quite late. Next time, I would go to the earlier one, just for that reason. Overall, it was fun, had a great laugh and it cost nothing.
You should try it!!
