Disney's Hollywood Studios- AI Experience

One of the first things inside of the Hollywood Studios park is the New American Idol Experience . If any of you have ever watched American Idol on tv it is quite an interesting competition. This is very much like the whole American Idol thing just in a shortened version of course. We talked Lex into auditioning for it just for the heck of it. I think she was a bit nervous about the whole thing, but after all was said and done I think she had a really good time. When you first go in to audition, they take you inside a room with one judge. You can pick anything you want to sing Acapella of course. They ask you a few questions and then they decide if they think you should go on to the second audition. Well, judge # 1 said definately move forward. Then they proceed to take you into a waiting room area. They give you a song list of about 50 songs to choose from, a set of earphones and an Ipod to listen to these songs on. You have to pick 2 songs to sing to judge #2. These are karaoke style. The music plays and words are scrolling on the screen behind the judges head. When you pick your 2 songs and feel confident your ready they send you into the judge. He plays a portion of each of the 2 songs you picked and you sing them. They tell you which of the 2 songs they like best and if they let you move forward to a show you sing that song in the show. Lex was told she was moving forward to one of the shows. They have a total of 7 shows a day. Three people compete in each one of those shows. She was scheduled to sing in the noon show. She was told to come back at 10:50 to get hair and makeup done and to practice her song and get instructions about the show. The rest of the family was aloud in at 11:30 to watch her practice her song before the audience was opened to the public. The other 2 she competed with did a good job, but she was definately the top. She won show # 1. This means she had to come back and do the finale show at 7pm and compete with the winners of the other six shows of the day. The winner of the Finale show was to receive a Golden ticket to actually get the chance to go audition at a true American Idol tryout.With this golden ticket you could jump to the front of the line at those auditions and be up front and not have to stand around waiting for hours or days to try out. The bad part about the AI Experience at Hollywood studios there was not an age limit for who could try out and win this ticket. But for American Idol itself they do have an age limit of I think 32. Below you will see a slide of pictures from the first show.

This video is a short one of Lex practicing before her performance in show # 1
This next video is of all 3 getting up to find out who the winner is.
This next video is the winner being announced
Below is a slide of pictures from the Finale show. We didn't know what to expect going into the Finale, but for the most part the ones who made it to the top 3 were definately the top 3 performers. The others must not have had alot of competition in the prior shows they were in. The funny part was, the top 3 were the last 3 to sing and perform. So I think by my personal opinion(not sure it matters) is that the judges going into it knew who should be the top 3 and so it was planned to have them perform last. Just seemed to work out that way anyhow.

Below is Lex's performance. Sorry for the jiggly camera. Not really sure why I was moving so much, other than to get out of the way of the person with the hat in front of us.
And last but not least, the winner is announced
The winner was definately good. He actually does music ministry in a church. The bad part is , he won the golden ticket, which he deserved, but he was turning 32 in a few weeks and wouldn't be able to use it to audition for American Idol anyhow. The girl who was second place was also over 32 , So guess noone will be using that ticket. Guess that's why they call it an American Idol Experience.