TopGear Filming

[p1stonhead]

Shakermaker said:

p1stonhead said:

Biker 1 said:

Blimey, a whole day down the pan to stand around with jail-like conditions, including porta-loo, queuing & rain, just to be on TV for a few seconds at best?????? I'm afraid I can't see the attraction.

it always interested me to go especially as im local, but that just sounds st.

Do people not even get to watch the celebrity/stig laps etc? That being said I dont recall ever seeing an audience for that...

No, you do see that, they show it on TVs in the studio

No I meant just let people go out and have a look! The studio is right next to the track!

[Yipper]

It is obvious from the thread people have not done much TV. It is very much the nature of the beast. It is very common to spend 4-8hrs filming a 1min segment. Lots of travelling, standing around, setting up and alike. That poor guy who made headlines this week when his kids walked in on his 5min TV Skype interview probably spent half a day planning the slot, topics and timing. Producers figure most people wanna be on TV so bad, making them wait is not an issue.

[Cheib]

Biker 1 said:

Blimey, a whole day down the pan to stand around with jail-like conditions, including porta-loo, queuing & rain, just to be on TV for a few seconds at best?????? I'm afraid I can't see the attraction.

Indeed. Especially when all the major content isn't live which you have to watch on screens and not live anyway!

[Alex]

p1stonhead said:

it always interested me to go especially as im local, but that just sounds st.

Do people not even get to watch the celebrity/stig laps etc? That being said I dont recall ever seeing an audience for that...

We could see the celebrity laps being filmed in the distance. In fact, I think that's one of the reasons we had to wait.

[yellowjack]

I've seen several things filmed up in that there London.

Every time I've been, there's been the same warning beforehand. Get there early as we issue more tickets than we have seats. Travelling an hour by train means time and expense,and planning. So we made sure we got there early.

I've seen Argumental, some dirge called The Wall, a couple of chat shows and live audience comedies. I also earned massive "dad points" by getting my son in to the filming of Blast Lab with Richard Hammond. He even got some screen-time, leaning on 'Oliver the Opel' for one of Hammond's pieces to camera.

The most irritating part of it, though, is that you aren't necessarily even admitted to the studio in the order you arrive in the queue. Yes, there are priority passes, who get VIP seats, I expected that. But then when the rest of you are stood outside the ITV Studios in a long queue, counting how many folk are ahead of you, and realising you're close to the cut-off point, the audience crew come out to play.

Up and down the line they go, sizing you up and judging whether you're the right 'demographic' for the show. They tend not to cut anyone from the queue, but they DO load the front rows with people they pick out of the line. 'Beautiful' couples, attractive single ladies, folk dressed a certain way. Me and my wife were increasingly concerned that we wouldn't get in as dozens of other potential audience members were brought forward from behind us in the queue. Then, these 'pickers' melt away as stealthily as they arrived, and the loudhailer comes out to tell us that the rest of us can move forward, in small batches (to help them count). At a certain point, everyone else in the queue is informed that "sorry - you're not going to get in tonight. But thanks for coming."

They have to over-issue tickets though, because if fewer folk turn up they'll have a partly empty studio, and that's something producers can't afford because it makes their show appear to be less than popular before it even airs. So I understand why they do it, while understanding the frustration of those who don't get in. I missed out on the 'old' Top Gear at Dunsfold. We managed to get a ticket offer by email, but didn't respond in time to that e-mail. That was on a first-come, first-served basis too.

Edited by yellowjack on Monday 13th March 11:11

[Dr Doofenshmirtz]

Yep - this is all perfectly normal for free entry TV stuff. I've got the kids tickets to loads of garbage like X Factor, Teen awards etc. You have to rock up a good two hours early to stand any chance of getting in.

Although it's annoying getting turned away, you can appreciate why they do it. A lot of people sign up for the freebies and then never turn up. We've done it several times.

[p1stonhead]

Yes its usual for TV, we can only presume the ticket says that somewhere on it. The bit the OP posted doesnt. If it doesnt then it would be a bit off, but I would put money on it being written somewhere.

[anonymous-user]

tuffer said:

Butter Face said:

PurpleAki said:

tuffer said:

When I went a mate and his Brother flew from the USA and missed the birth of his son to be there.

He is a berk then.

Yeah let's be honest, missing that for any reason makes them a total throbber anyway.

Thanks for your great insight to someone I have known for many years and is one of the nicest people I have ever met and yet you know nothing about. His Wife was checked the day before he flew and given the all clear by the Dr, baby not due for another two weeks. She went into Labour the next day and he watched it live via Skype from my Kitchen. No big deal, he was present at the birth of his previous two. Many of my mates missed the birth of their children due to being away on operational tours in the Forces, get over it. Whilst visiting TopGear is not that important in the big scheme of things he could just have easily have been out of town on a trip and just not able to get back in time.

I think it's the way you originally wrote the sentence. It makes it sound like your mate chose to go to see Top Gear filmed over the birth of his son, not the birth happened unexpectedly when he was away.

[Butter Face]

ruprechtmonkeyboy said:

tuffer said:

Butter Face said:

PurpleAki said:

tuffer said:

When I went a mate and his Brother flew from the USA and missed the birth of his son to be there.

He is a berk then.

Yeah let's be honest, missing that for any reason makes them a total throbber anyway.

Thanks for your great insight to someone I have known for many years and is one of the nicest people I have ever met and yet you know nothing about. His Wife was checked the day before he flew and given the all clear by the Dr, baby not due for another two weeks. She went into Labour the next day and he watched it live via Skype from my Kitchen. No big deal, he was present at the birth of his previous two. Many of my mates missed the birth of their children due to being away on operational tours in the Forces, get over it. Whilst visiting TopGear is not that important in the big scheme of things he could just have easily have been out of town on a trip and just not able to get back in time.

I think it's the way you originally wrote the sentence. It makes it sound like your mate chose to go to see Top Gear filmed over the birth of his son, not the birth happened unexpectedly when he was away.

Absolutely, amazingly context is everything. Who'd have thunk it!

[ukaskew]

This is fairly standard practice.

They also overbook flights, hotels and pretty much anything that has the potential for non-shows.

[xjay1337]

I know it's annoying

I went to see Russell Howards good news.

The email said they issue more tickets than there are spaces. we turned up 2 hours before they said to get there and the queue was already massive. Although we had no issues getting in.

[jhonn]

Biker 1 said:

Blimey, a whole day down the pan to stand around with jail-like conditions, including porta-loo, queuing & rain, just to be on TV for a few seconds at best?????? I'm afraid I can't see the attraction.

Me neither; a couple of years ago we were offered tickets to see Clarkson et al - despite being a big TG fan I just couldn't see the attraction in travelling there for hours and standing around in a studio for hours on end watching the show on big screen TV's.

Same with the TGT - when they were local I wasn't interested in applying for tickets - would much rather enjoy it at home (where I can use the FF button, when needed )

[V1DL3R]

I was the guy in the Noble. I was pretty ticked off. Considering the email I had said "doors open at 1" - black and white. I get why they do it but it was 100s of cars which got turned away. Forget the 8 hours of driving, forget the overnight boarding kennels booked for my dog, forget the £100s of fuel what really annoyed me was no one cared. No one cared about making the system better. No one was keeping a record of the number of cars being turned away. This means they do not have an accurate way of defining a drop out rate. This will not allow them to model how many tickets should be issued in order to forcast number of tickets to issue in future and minimise the loss for people. It a real shame that they just don't have any desire to care more about people's time. The people who have been watching and supporting the show since they were 5 (yep do the maths if you wish). It leaves a bad taste in the mouth when you give more to the show than your eyeballs and it's so selfishly managed.

Edited by V1DL3R on Monday 13th March 13:11

Edited by V1DL3R on Monday 13th March 13:15

[Dr Interceptor]

V1DL3R said:

I was the guy in the Noble. I was pretty ticked off. Considering the email I had said "doors open at 1" - black and white. I get why they do it but it was 100s of cars which got turned away. Forget the 8 hours of driving, forget the overnight boarding kennels booked for my dog, forget the £100s of fuel what really annoyed me was no one cared. No one cared about making the system better. No one was keeping a record of the number of cars being turned away. This means they do not have an accurate way of defining a drop out rate. This will not allow theme to model how many tickets should be issued in order to forcast number of tickets to issue in future and minimise the loss for people. It a real shame that they just don't have any desire to care more about people's time. The people who have been watching and supporting the show since they were 5 (yep do the maths if you wish). It leaves a bad taste in the mouth when you give more to the show than your eyeballs and it's so selfishly managed.

Edited by V1DL3R on Monday 13th March 13:11

I was in the red JCW convertible, parked next to you at the pub - my mates were in the black Z4.

As far as I was concerned, and clearly you as well, we were there in good time and agree with your sentiments.

Nice car by the way

[Jonesy23]

It's a bit stupid, I understand the basic reasoning but:

a) Have they ever had a problem with not enough people turning up?

b) Given the way the studio works with the audience would anyone notice if they somehow were even 50% down?

Strikes me as all very unnecessary.

[Biker 1]

I watched my daughter being born - scariest thing I ever did; probably traumatised me for life

[anonymous-user]

V1DL3R said:

I was the guy in the Noble. I was pretty ticked off. Considering the email I had said "doors open at 1" - black and white. I get why they do it but it was 100s of cars which got turned away. Forget the 8 hours of driving, forget the overnight boarding kennels booked for my dog, forget the £100s of fuel what really annoyed me was no one cared. No one cared about making the system better. No one was keeping a record of the number of cars being turned away. This means they do not have an accurate way of defining a drop out rate. This will not allow them to model how many tickets should be issued in order to forcast number of tickets to issue in future and minimise the loss for people. It a real shame that they just don't have any desire to care more about people's time. The people who have been watching and supporting the show since they were 5 (yep do the maths if you wish). It leaves a bad taste in the mouth when you give more to the show than your eyeballs and it's so selfishly managed.

Edited by V1DL3R on Monday 13th March 13:11

Edited by V1DL3R on Monday 13th March 13:15

Why should they care? It's not like you can go searching for a refund, and for every person who goes away sulking, ten more eager get-on-TV types will turn up next week.
My guess is they consider it something of a privilege to be in the audience (especially for big name stuff like CHM TG) so yeah....they don't need to care.

[bodhi]

jhonn said:

Me neither; a couple of years ago we were offered tickets to see Clarkson et al - despite being a big TG fan I just couldn't see the attraction in travelling there for hours and standing around in a studio for hours on end watching the show on big screen TV's.

Same with the TGT - when they were local I wasn't interested in applying for tickets - would much rather enjoy it at home (where I can use the FF button, when needed )

I did always wonder, just how annoying it would be to finally have your name come up for TG tickets, only to find you were at the filming of one of the specials with no studio section?

[Shakermaker]

bodhi said:

jhonn said:

Me neither; a couple of years ago we were offered tickets to see Clarkson et al - despite being a big TG fan I just couldn't see the attraction in travelling there for hours and standing around in a studio for hours on end watching the show on big screen TV's.

Same with the TGT - when they were local I wasn't interested in applying for tickets - would much rather enjoy it at home (where I can use the FF button, when needed )

I did always wonder, just how annoying it would be to finally have your name come up for TG tickets, only to find you were at the filming of one of the specials with no studio section?

They filmed the studio links at the same time as a regular episode if they had any need to do so.

[Snatch1]

Thanks to the OP for posting this and sorry you didn't get in to see the show. I

was registered on Applause Store for years but never got issued tickets. I registered on Lost in TV after reading this thread and have just been issued 4 tickets for the 5th April

I'm not looking to get on TV. As a fan of TG, I'm genuinely interested to see the show being made.

I'll be sure to arrive early so as to avoid being turned away.