In the Audience of The Bachelor’s After the Final Rose

What Was It Like Being In The Audience of

The Bachelor After the Final Rose?

When you’re in the audience for After the Final Rose you are there for a really, really long time with nothing happening. You are required to arrive at the studio parking garage three hours before airtime. The attendant found our names on the list, checked out IDs, and gave us the all clear to enter the garage. She instructed us to head down to the basement level of the garage after we parked.

The number of jewel-tone clad women waiting in line – many with roses gripped tightly in their hands – was a pretty clear sign that we were in the right place. In fact, there was a female to male ratio for audience members of about 25 to 1.

The line, about 150 or so deep at that point, was in a frenzy talking about the previous night’s show. Did the Bachelor go too far with the filmed breakup? Did this ensure Becca’s spot as the Bachelorette? Was Lauren B. going to be as wet of a blanket as the show made her out to be? (My answers to that were no, yes, and yes.)

At the front of the line, if you hadn’t left your phone in your car (as instructed), security took it from you and then we were screened through a metal detector. The TSA’ish folks looked through purses for cans of mace which I assume was a bigger threat to Arie than for a Bachelor like, I don’t know, Ben Higgins or Sean Lowe. From there, studio guides waited to amass a group of around 40 people and then took us to our next holding area.

This holding tank comes with Subway sandwiches, chips and (non-alcoholic) drinks! Everyone signs releases (which I can say I didn’t see anyone, including myself, read) and gets a bite to eat. When Drew threw away our trash he came back and said that the trash cans were filled almost exclusively with bread. Apparently, Bachelor fans are a low-carb bunch.

We noticed that other audience members had various colors of wrist bands and we didn’t have a wrist band at all, so then I had Dr. Seuss’ The Sneetches in my head the rest of the time. With an hour to go until show time, they started calling up groups with similarly colored wrist bands.

After exiting the Subway area we were shuttled through the lot – where we had to keep quiet because they were filming another show – and finally into the Bachelor’s studio(!!!!).  When we first walked inside, still off the set, there were a ton of potted plants and flowers and I wondered what they were all for. Now I know it was to create the façade of the Bachelor mansion for Becca the Bachelorette to meet her first five suitors!

The crew placed people, for the most part, according to their wrist bands. From what we were able to gather, many people donated to charity auctions for their seats in the audience. I assume that the more you donated, the better (more visible) seat you were assigned. The only shot of us through the whole 2-hour show was my teal blouse and hands clapping over Bekah M.’s shoulder – so you can guess how much we paid.

With about 20 minutes to show time audience members are still coming in, being placed and moving around. Arie’s and Lauren B.’s families were seated and they never once spoke to each other that we saw (unless the cameras were on them and even then it was emotionally lacking). And, how weird is that? Even if you don’t know one another, you share this crazy experience. It seems like there would be plenty to chat about. But, Lauren’s mom seems a lot like her – like a robot with dead batteries. I am sure they are both perfectly kind, but man, they aren’t the life of any party.

Back to ATFR.

A hype guy came out, let us know how things were going to progress over the next few hours and told some jokes. There was a dance contest among audience members. It was pretty exciting! You really could feel the energy building for the show.

Drew and I thought The Bachelor probably filmed audience “reaction shots” before the show, and the “live” show would really be 15 minutes delayed for editors to place in faux emotions and reactions. But as soon as the hype guy left we heard that it was 5 minutes to show time. Chris Harrison came out, said thanks to everyone for coming and just like that, we were live!

During commercials, Chris Harrison walked around and talked to audience members and joked around with the former contestants (Bekah, Caroline, Sienne, Kendall and Tia). He really seemed to have a good camaraderie with them, which I was surprised by and happy to see. I’m glad that after so many seasons of filming for the show, Chris doesn’t (or at least doesn’t appear to) film his part of the show and dash away. He seems to know the contestants well and they seemed to like him – on and off camera.

Once Arie and Lauren’s much anticipated, surprise/not surprise engagement happened, the cameras showed the newly engaged couple head over to their parents where the families oohhh’d and aaahhh’d over the two (well, as much as any of them did, which was remarkably little) and the show cut to commercial. What the cameras missed, was former contestants running excitedly over to Lauren to congratulate her and then almost literally curling their lips to Arie and walking away without a word said. It must be a weird feeling to have the love and support of your friends for your (cough, cough THIRD) engagement but not your husband-to-be.

Since The Bachelor: After the Final Rose really, truly (and surprisingly) is a live show, if you watched it you know what I know at this point. We had a blast experiencing it all! From beginning to end, for a 2-hour show, we were at the studio for 5 hours with not a lot to divert our attention (no phones). Actually, come to think of it, it was the tiniest of taste of what it must be like to be on the show – well, without the open bar.