Sitcoms taped in front of live audiences are a fun experience and offer you the chance to earn some first-hand experience of the entertainment industry, but they are anything but a casual day out. Tickets are free, but getting in is going to take some advanced planning, a lot of patience, and is going to require you to spend the bulk of your day waiting.
The journey starts with one of the many studio audience ticket websites. Each have a different schedule, so try to find one where your show is listed in the next 30 days. Once you find the show, and the date you would like to attend, individually fill out the application form, and ticket requests are generally granted one month in advance of the show. To explain the demand for tickets, you would have had to check back multiple times to see if tickets had become available for The Big Bang Theory tickets.
Two types of tickets are issued: guaranteed admission tickets, and standby tickets. The order in which guests arrive seems to have an impact on who gets in, so arriving early is best practice. Similarly, if you have a guaranteed admission ticket, this does not mean you should arrive late.
As a general rule for any studio tapings, arrive much earlier than you feel like you want to. There are stories of people waiting from as early as 8am for a studio taping that started at 6:30, and then there are stories of groups that showed up even earlier at 11am. If the assembly for 2 Broke Girls started at 3:30 and you were finding yourself arriving after 2, you were inevitably going to join a very long line.
The truth of studio audience participation becomes evident here. During that event, even guests with confirmed tickets were ostensibly turned away, receiving green cards marked with the names of people who were not allowed in. This was a consolation prize to come back for another show, which is reasonable for those living in Los Angeles, but not so much for those who would be traveling out of the city the next day. After explaining this to the others in the group and an additional hour or two wait, they were finally let in when some VIP guests left early. Luck does play a part.
Driving is the best option to get to the filming locations of The Big Bang Theory and 2 Broke Girls at Warner Bros. Studio. If you are starting in downtown Los Angeles, it would be very complicated to use public transport. Plus, the city is very difficult to get around without a car. With a car, you can also leave any electronics you are not allowed to bring to the studio, including phones and cameras. It also saves a lot of time after the filming is done because you do not have to wait for public transport.
A sitcom episode airs for about 20 mins, but every episode usually takes anywhere from 3 to 6 hours to film. One filming session even lasted from 5 p.m. to almost midnight. Different audience reactions have to be prompted to get a true response. This can definitely be tiring, but it's actually much better than just sitting at home watching the show. There is an audience warm-up to keep everyone entertained throughout the filming, and during breaks, they may even throw out prizes, like T-shirts or cupcakes.
One last piece of advice is to try to limit your drink intake before the filming begins. There will be bathroom breaks in groups so if you leave to go to the bathroom, you will have to wait until enough people leave to escort you.
It is worth knowing what the tradeoff is. Your time is free, but you lose your entire day to the studio. Make sure to show up early ready to go and a loss to the show and consider your ticket to be a privilege.
