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Live from New York — it’s time to try your hand once more at snagging the ever-elusive Saturday Night Live lottery tickets, with submissions open through the end of the month.
Now in its 47th season, the legendary late night sketch comedy show has released its 2022-2023 season lottery applications — which, while slightly less nerve-racking than auditioning for Lorne Michaels, does involve pleading your case to the Gods of NBC. Audience hopefuls who are fully vaccinated and over 16 may send one email per person to SNLTICKETS@NBCUNI.COM with a brief missive explaining why they would like to see the show in person.
Winners will receive “a set number of tickets for a random show date and time,” said NBC. To head off the scalpers, the network reserves the right to revoke any ticket they suspect has been sold, auctioned off or transferred.
If you prefer to live life on the edge, there’s also the infamous standby line. Adventurous types can email SNL.STANDBY@NBCUNI.COM between 10am and 5pm the Thursday of a show week, requesting up to four tickets. If selected for the line, the first 500 potential audience members are given a reservation to wait overnight in front of NBC Studios until a select number of tickets are distributed 10am Saturday for either the dress rehearsal or live taping. Line goers are forbidden from camping out in tents, with mattresses, sleeping bags or lounge chairs — though “regular chairs’ (?) are permitted.
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Those lucky enough to catch the taping in-person are likely to spot an extra celebrity or two, in addition to the host and cast — though it’s unlikely to top Timothee Chalamet’s December 2020 show, in which he made special mention of growing up in Hell’s Kitchen.
Chalamet, who lived in Manhattan Plaza as a child, joked: “I’ll always be a New York City kid at heart, especially at Christmas… Ice skating on the Hudson, sledding down the side of the Chrysler Building, leaving cookies for Santa in the bathroom at the Port Authority Bus Terminal… Playing hide and seek in Grand Central and never seeing your friends ever again.”
If you strike out at seeing an SNL taping this season — the odds are better at snagging seats to a weekday taping of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Amber Ruffin Show or of course, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, where you are the likeliest of all to hear a Hell’s Kitchen-specific shoutout!
The SNL lottery closes August 28. Full rules and regulations can be found here.