I just got home from the Apprentice finale at the Hollywood Bowl. The Bowl holds about 18,000 people; there were about 3000 people there.

Rain was predicted so they handed out disposable ponchos to audience members. We started out sitting over on the side on the bench seats. Once they realized that the "friends and family" seats weren't going to fill up, they started handing out tickets for better seats. First we moved from the side bench seats over to the middle terrace box seats. Right away we got sent down to third row center in the garden box seats, about 50 feet from the stage.

We were told to yell out TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP when The Donald was introduced. They said to look forward to the "special guest" later in the show. We guessed that it might be Arnold, the Governator. It was George, Trump's old sidekick.

Audience members had signs for the final 4 candidates. James had the most signs, followed by Stefani. There were about 3 signs for Frank and none for Nicole. However there were signs for Melinda Doolittle, Sanjaya, and Blake.

During the commercials, the warm-up comedian spoke with Randall, Kendra, some other former apprentices, and Omarosa. Unfortunately, she's now working for Barack Obama, so I guess he won't be our next president.

It started to mist toward the end of the show, so people basically ignored the last segment as they put on their ponchos and opened their umbrellas. If you didn't hear much applause at the end, it's because we were holding our umbrellas with one hand or were wearing gloves.

We were told absolutely no cell phones or cameras, but they didn't really check at the entrance. These are the only pictures I got beforehand.

First, the nearby building where the Jimmy Kimmel show is taped:

Next, the Hollywood Bowl sign announcing the Apprentice Finale:

Here's my ticket:

• RE: West Coast I Was There Thread,Snidget, 07:00 AM, 04-23-07
• RE: West Coast I Was There Thread,Cyndimaus, 12:09 PM, 04-23-07
• RE: West Coast I Was There Thread,ang4vols, 07:55 PM, 04-23-07
  • RE: West Coast I Was There Thread,Puffy, 08:22 PM, 04-23-07
• RE: West Coast I Was There Thread,frankz, 10:25 PM, 04-23-07
  • RE: West Coast I Was There Thread,Puffy, 01:59 AM, 04-24-07

Wow, congrats on the great seats, but day-um only 3000 peeps showed up.

Love the American Idol signs.

What a fun experience. I think it's always interesting to see the "behind the scenes" kind of stuff by being in the audience. Totally different feel than watching it on TV.

sig courtesy of Cygnus

Wow..that is pretty cool. So, did James get in trouble for saying the name of his company after his mini bio thing? I am still trying to figure out what comments Trump was referring to in the end when he told James that he was fired because of these comments and James knew what he was talking about. Did we miss something?

Nothing was edited from the live show. James didn't say the name of his company. My opinion is that Trump was referring to other comments during the course of the show and the many board rooms.

Wow Puffy. How cool. So it was all live? You saw the clips they showed us on a screen or something? What did they do during commercials, besides fix Donald's hair?
How did you get those tickets? I noticed the price was right.
Thanks for the insight.

There are plenty of businesses like show business

It was all shot in one hour. There was a huge video screen above the stage; I think you could see it on the show. Sometimes Stefani and James looked up while they talked to Donald. I think they were distracted by and looking at the screen which was above Donald's head.

When they showed re-cap clips and Stefani's and James' bio-clips and the Renuzit commercials, we saw it on the big screen above the stage.

During commercials, which was in real time, the warm-up comedian talked to audience members. He went over to the folks holding the signs for each contestant and spoke to Stefani's and James' mothers.

He also introduced the former Apprentice winners to the audience and they commented about what they are doing now. He threw out a few t-shirts to the audience, too. Donald never spoke to the audience or got out of his seat once he had been introduced. The losers for this season waved to their friends and family during the commercial break, too.

I decided to google "Apprentice finale tickets" once I realized it would be at the Hollywood bowl. I found the website and entered my name, email address and number of tickets that I requested. I immediately got notified to print out my free tickets and it was guaranteed seating. There were a bunch of directions on the ticket (what to wear, no cell phones, no cameras, etc). They could have easily handled another 10,000 people!