America's Got Talent

Hi there

Above:  Here's a pic of the fountain outside Wynn Casino in Las Vegas.  That flying saucer thing behind the fountain is Fashion Show Mall - love that mall!  I have read that the Bellagio Hotel and Casino people are going to fill in their famous fountains and gardens and also put in a mall.
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In Hollywood, I bought a ticket at the Dolby Theatre box office to go on a 3 pm tour of the theatre.  The Dolby is where the Oscars are broadcast from.  Anyway, just as I  almost  reached the upstairs doors, ticket clutched in hand, the security guys put up a barricade blocking my way.

"But I should be going in there now," I shouted.  I could see my group being led in the main doors.

"No, you're not allowed..."

I rushed over to the other side where another barricade was being put in place.  Again, I was refused, regardless of my telling them over and over again that I was on a tour.

A security woman continually told me that I couldnt go in.  She passed the message on to others. 
Several security guards told me to go away.  I did.  I rushed downstairs to the box office and was given a box office security guy, plus a ticket for the next tour as I had missed the first one.  So now, it was security guys arguing with each other.  The box ofice guy gave up with a shrug, and the barricade guys started erecting security beeper doorways, and tables for the future checking of  people and bags.

I moved from one barricade to another. Noone helped me....

...until the box office security guard came back and spoke to some bald barricade guy who looked like he was in charge.

The bald guy was the producer, or director, or whatever to do with the tv show "America's Got Talent" and he thought I was one of the hundreds of shouting fans dangling over the barricades.  His live tv show was due to start in the theatre in a few  hours. He apologised to me, said he'd seen me but didn't understand that the theatre was conducting tours at the same time as he was setting up for his show.

By now five others had joined me for the tour.

Ending: inside the theatre,  we got to see a singer on America's Got Talent in full rehearsal mode, complete with lights, lasers, settings.  He was 17 year old Christian somebody-or-other and he sang "Make it Rain".  He had about ten mirrors behind him and before he got to sing, ten mirror polishers came on and each polished a mirror (why on earth couldnt one man have done the ten mirrors?).  After Christian sang, some woman in a bathrobe and fluffy slippers (Tyra Banks?) came out and told Christian how magnificent he was, and - out of sight - we could hear judges gushing over the singer.  They weren't the proper judges, just a rehearsal panel.

The theatre was so beautiful, and there were dozens of Americas Got Talent people bustling everywhere.  The full show would have gone out live that evenng (Monday of last week) before a live ticket-holding audience of thousands upon thousands who would all be waiting behind the barricades for that night-time show.