My beautiful tribe!
I have missed you tremendously in this month away from the blog! But I'm here today with a little life lesson I'm coming to learn as of late.
This month I've finally started reading Girl, Stop Apologizing and I am taking part in the #TheGSABookclub. Basically I read a chapter a day of the book, fill out the GSA workbook (to help further dive in to the book and my goals), and watch Facebook lives with Rachel Hollis and Dave Hollis. It's been incredibly eye-opening and motivating me to live the best life possible.
And this means taking advantage of every opportunity and not apologizing for it.
Yesterday, I (as well as my boyfriend) had the incredible chance to be audience members on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. It wasn't because I paid trillions of dollars for tickets or because I know someone on the show. Or because I'm an influencer or what-have-you.
I literally went online and entered to get tickets.
And I got selected.
Following the show we went to dinner and I actually said out loud, "I want to wear my Fallon sweatshirt I got to work tomorrow, but I don't want it to look like I'm bragging."
And Jer told me that I was being silly and I should wear it.
Without even realizing it, I was apologizing.
So I'm here to share about my experience going on The Jimmy Fallon Show- from getting the tickets to the show itself. It is SUPER easy and was one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to experience.
Step 1 in the process is going to Twitter and checking @ Fallon Tix to find out when the tickets are going to be released. Typically they release a month ahead of time (i.e. tickets for May opened up on April 5th at 11:30 AM). Jer and I had been discussing wanting to go see a taping of the show essentially since we started dating. Since his birthday is coming up, I started looking up the process of how to get tickets in March.
Step 2 is going to the website (click the photo below to be sent to the website) and creating an account. I created my account way ahead of time so on the day of I could just login and request tickets for as many days as possible.
I requested tickets for every Monday (my normal day off) I had available in May, which ended up being May 6th, May 13th, and May 20th. You had to enter your name, contact information, and the reason you want to attend. If you connect your Facebook/ added a photo (re: had a more complete profile) it increases your chances of being selected (or so they say). I told Jer not to schedule work for any of those days. Then I waited. The estimated wait time was two weeks.
On April 24th, I was contacted saying my ticket request for May 6th was changed from waitlisted to available. This did not guarantee me a ticket. I immediately clicked confirm ticket and entered the requested information (including my guest name). This still not guarantee me a ticket.
About a week before the show the guests get announced. As much as I wanted it to be the Jonas Brothers, I really was just hoping it was someone I had heard of at least.
My mom was the first to see the guests- Will Smith, Laurie Metcalf, and Phil Hanley.
WILL FREAKING SMITH.
And of course he was there promoting Aladdin, which I am beyond pumped to see.
I printed my ticket, read the instructions 10 trillion times, and finally it was the Sunday before and I could tell Jer. He was mostly surprised, but the way I told his was clever af:
We ended up staying in New Haven on Sunday night because we were tired from our day trip to Hartford.
The Day of the Show
8:45 AM Wake Up & Drink some coffee
10:00 AM Head to the Train Station
10:22 AM Depart to NYC
12:26 PM Arrive in NYC (maybe it was the excitement, but this was the slowest express train you all)
12:30 PM Head over to Rockefeller area (we walked it was a beautiful day!)
Ate my first NY pretzel and had some lemonade!!!!!
12:40- 2:45 PM Walked around the area and shops. We essentially stalked that area because I was worried we weren't going to get in. But we weren't allowed to start a line until 3:00 so we just kinda paced around.
3:00 PM Brought my ticket to the grand staircase and headed up the stairs to wait in line
No food /drinks were allowed beyond this point. Waited in this fancy area -playing some BOPS- until official check in.
3:15 PM Check in/ go through security; FINALLY RECEIVED OFFICIAL TICKETS.
(They overbook to ensure a full studio audience. The studio audience holds 225 and they usually book around 250. Even still they will have empty seats and they have a standby list which doesn't come in the peacock lounge until 3:50ish).
3:20 PM-4:00 PMish Chilled in the peacock lounge. It was bougie, the music was loud.
Took photos, went to the bathroom.
4:00 PM We powered down our phones and they started calling people up by groups.
First was letters.
Next was double letters.
Then was numbers (We were number 2)
Then we went up the elevator to get to the studio. Unfortunately, we had to turn in our purple tickets but luckily had wristbands as souvenirs.
We were sat house right, five rows up (Jer remembered this), and in seats 114 and 116. There really weren't any bad seats in the studio, but I was a huge fan of our location. The Roots were right in front of us and we could look down the hallway to see into the sound booth.
The audience host came out (he's a friend of Jimmy's ) to pump up the crowd and explain how it works. Closer to show time the floor manager, cue card holder, and more of the crew came out. At 5 (I imagine because I didn't have my phone on) the show started and what a blast it was.
Jimmy Fallon was honestly one of the coolest guys (as he seems) and the whole thing flew by. They took the commercial breaks and played the clips in time so they could make sure the timing was accurate. It was also a super special show because they just hit the five year anniversary of mark and he reflected back on the past couple of years. Will Smith came out and when they broke for commercial he came out and high-fived some of the audience. He tried to take some photos with the audience members house left -not realizing (or remembering?) all of our phones were off. The show photographer stepped in though and took a quick pic. When Will was heading house right and chilling out, Jimmy eventually had to come up the stairs saying "Will,Will come on we got to tape this segment" (re: the Magic Carpet Race).
Laurie Metcalf was next and they did retape her intro (which was the only part of the whole show that was retaped).
Finishing off the show was comedian Phil Hanley and he was pretty funny if I do say so myself.
After the show Jimmy came around and gave some high fives. Then we all waited to exit row by row while the audience coordinator did a little Q& A.
We headed to the gift shop (I got a mug -obviously- and a long sleeve sweatshirt) and then went to John's Pizza for dinner before heading back to New Haven. We watched the show when we got home and I'm happy to report we did make the final episode!
This was a fantastic day and I'm excited to try and go back (after a mandatory six month waiting period).
Just a reminder from your good friend Chels:
There are no limitations in life except the ones you place on yourself. There is no reason you can't be the good breakfast maker, the girl who does yoga, the mom with a Youtube channel, or the couple in the audience at Jimmy Fallon.
Chances are the things you want are on the other side of fear.
Much love always,
💜Chels