While they make it seem like the 10,000 all get to the final panel that day they show up it really doesn't work that way.

The cull the 10,000 down to maybe a hundred (each person usually gets several questions and a couple of songs that get edited down to the TV audition so when you look at 6 hours a day and 10 minutes each that isn't that many people) on the cattle call days and then those with the call back (told to wear the same clothes) go to a hotel for the final judging. So that waited outside in the rain all day before they saw Simon et al. is a fiction.

For me that makes it worse. It isn't that the bad ones get seen by the for TV panel because they were just the next number in the line. I think that is why you see some of the "but I'm great" meltdowns. I don't think they tell the really lousy ones they are being selected because they are lousy and will be made fun of at the call backs. Now there are some that are that deluded, but I do think we see some who believed the call back was a real shot at making it to Hollywood. Some people will go just to get the shot at being a fool on TV, but some of the worst of the worst are, IMO, lead to believe by the producers they are good enough to make the show because if they knew the truth they wouldn't come to the call back a couple of weeks later.