Dancing With the Stars Season 21 Premiere

One of my besties Christina invited me to the Season 21 Premier of Dancing With the Stars.  I have watched nearly every episode of every season so I was pretty excited to say the least.  I moved my schedule around and jumped on board to make the day trip.  I got up at 4:45 am and had to get fully ready.  We left Fresno at 6 am and got to CBS studios about 10 am.  We were the first in line and set up shop on the sidewalk.  Almost right away Karina came out and ran across the street to the gas station.  She was so kind to take pictures with us especially since she was in between hair and makeup.  While we were waiting we also saw Jenna Dewam Tatam, Bruno, Julianne Hough, and Keo drive up.   About 11:30 two of us went to get lunch and we brought it back for a picnic.  Between 2:00 and 3:00 a crew came out to check our tickets and then about an hour later we moved to the bleachers outside the studio.  I believe we got ushered into the studio about 4:00 pm and then we got our spots.  We were put on the 2nd floor balcony and we stood next to Tom and Erin for the opening set.  We stood there the whole show except they moved us once to stand behind Emma and Hayes for a promo shot.  

It was so exciting to see such a production behind the scenes.  It looks quite different behind the camera; you definitely don't see what you see on TV.  It's also somewhat hard to hear.  I was expecting their mics to be connected to several speakers but they weren't.  My favorites of the night were Alek Skarlatos, Andy Grammer, Carlos PenaVega, Bindi Irwin, and Nick Carter.  I was totally rooting for Kim Zolciak Biermann but she was really stiff and nervous.  I hope she makes it back so we can see her open up.  Of course I'm team Real Housewives!!!

After the show wrapped Tom shot some promos so we didn't get out of the studio till close to 8.  We ran over to Unami Burger at The Grove to grab a quick burger and then we headed to the car to head home.  On our way out we ran directly into Nick Carter leaving the back of the studio.  We basically forced a quick picture with him and as we were taking the photo several Paparazzi took our picture.  Fingers crosses we end up in Us Weekly!!!

As we were getting into our car Mark Ballas was leaving and he waved and honked to us.  It was a good way to end the night.

It was a whirlwind of a day from 4:45am to almost 1 am but it was a total BLAST!  Thank you so much Christina for inviting me; I'm hooked.

Watch Episode 1 Here

(Watch around minute 3) 

Christina, Me, Natalie, and Sophie

The line that we were at the front of.

You're not allowed to take a phone or camera in but we all snuck our phones in and after the show wrapped I took pictures.  I figured nothing to lose at the very end.  If they kicked me out I wouldn't miss much.  By the way not looking at my phone for a few hours was like crack withdrawals- so sad!

Samantha from Bachelor in Paradise-Ugh yuck!

We overlooked Rumor Willis, Danica, Robert H (Shark Tank), & Maria Menounos from past seasons.  Next to Maria was Robin Antin.  On the other side of the floor was the cast from The Real and Brielle (Kim's daughter).

The Real Cast

His manager/friend/whoever sure doesn't know how to take a picture.