I managed to get an audition time for the Donny Osmond hosted \"Pyramid\" game show during their \"
Pyramid City Sweep\" event at the
Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.
I was told that I had an audition time of 10:00a, and to be there no less than ten minutes early. I woke up a little after 8:00, and got to the mall right at 9:30. I went to the area where the Pyramid stage was set up. On the stage was a nice mock up of the set, including a pyramid of six monitors with trusses and everything, designed to look very much like the set. Also, two contestant desks were on the stage, also in the styling of the show.
I asked at one of the tables, and was instructed where to go for the audition -- an empty store on the first level. There was already a line there of about forty people -- all registered in advance (I believe) waiting to check in. I hopped into line, got checked in, and went into the store. There were around 100 folding chairs set up, each with a clipboard and a \"pyramidgameshow.com\" pen.
There was a contestant application/information sheet on everyone's clipboard which we were instructed to fill out. It had typical things on it such as name, address, phone number, hobbies/interests, have you been on any other game/reality shows in the past ten years, if so which?, etc. Attached to that card was a salmon colored sheet with thirty numbered blank lines.
While we were waiting, they had a DVD running of an episode from the first season with a $25,000 win on it.
About ten minutes past 10:00, a man came up to the front of the room and introduced himself as Stephen Brown, executive producer of Pyramid! I was impressed that the E.P. of the show would be at a publicity tour -- I figured that there would be a contestant coordinator of sorts there, but not the big cheese himself. Anyhoo, he introduced himself, and thanked everyone for coming. He asked a few general questions and then explained how the audition process was going to work. He showed a montage video of a lot of winner's circle categories, clues, and answers, with the montage finishing with a $100K win (with less than a second on the clock!). He told us that the first part of the audition process was to play the end game - the winner's circle round. He was going to put in a tape with a list of five items for each blank, and our job was to write in the category for each list. Essentially, \"receiving\" in the end game, but writing our guess on paper. We were only allowed to write one answer, and were told to write something down for each answer, even if it was only a guess. He said, \"so, for example, if the tape says, 'A Shamrock, Grass, A Pine Tree, Certain Paint', you would write, 'things that are green.' Don't just write 'green' because I'll mark you wrong.\" He told us to write the following in the margin of our sheets:
\"Things that are...\"
\"What a ___ might say\"
\"Reasons...\" (which he told us that the key word to listen to was \"because\" -- \"
Because you want to be informed -
because you like the comic strips -
because you follow the stock market\" (\"reasons you read the newspaper\")
Basically, it was a list of the three most common \"styles\" of WC categories. ...and we were told to write our answers in those forms, as it is also the form that must be used on the show.
Read the rest of my experience if you'd like -- click here!(
It's too lengthy for this message board...)
