In The Audience Of The Grand Final Footy Show…

Last night was the Grand Final edition of AFL Footy Show capping off a very big year for the show which has been surrounded by controversy.  I was able to get myself a ticket and for the first time get a perspective of what it is like to be in the audience. It was quite an enjoyable night with the exception of some bastard breaking into my car and stealing a few things right in the Rod Laver Arena car park too, but that’s another story.

Throughout this post I will have the regular images taken from the show itself, as well as additional photos I have taken myself which are better viewed by enlarging them which can be done by clicking on the individual photo. I also have some videos I took with the audio quality not being spectacular, as you can imagine the echoing of the stadium didn’t do it any justice, and videos will be added at a later time.

Coming into Rod Laver Arena we were accompanied by a DJ who played music for about 30minutes before we were played a clip of previous Grand Final Footy Show Moments mostly the player Revue. After that we were ‘entertained’ by Michael Pope who also works on other shows within Nine Melbourne warming up the audience as well as another colleague (forgot the name apologies).

They also explained to us that there will be a chance to win prizes during the commercial breaks as well as the opportunity for one person to participate in Billy’s Wheel which utilised the now old Million Dollar Wheel of Fortune wheel (after all it’s not being used for anything else).

The live broadcast then began with the traditional Grand Final Footy Show opener taking on a certain theme, this year being the 80s’ with the title being called The Footy Show Count Down in reference to the old ABC TV show Count Down hosted by Molly Meldrum who was also in the audience.

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Sam Newman made his dramatic entrance for which he best known for, this time dressed as Dermott Brereton as he did in Street Talk a few weeks ago. Also within Footy Show tradition there are two panels that join the show, the first comprised of Billy Brownless, Brendan Fevola and Jonathan Brown with the second panel containing Nathan Brown, Dale Thomas and Jason Akermanis.

After The Living End opened the show you can imagine during the break the chaos there is going on stage to get the set out in time after the performance, and to combat the issue of time when viewers come back from a commercial break a highlights package is shown giving the crew that extra little bit of time to get things right.

During the performances from all those involved from The living End, Kim Wilde and Vanessa Amorosi it was encouraged of the crowd to stand up and dance along or sing also and not just sit in our seats like stiffs. However that’s exactly what everyone did with the exception of the closing number from Vanessa Amorosi where they basically begged us to get up and move, but I think most of the moving was done by the people trying to beat the crowd a leave early.

One of the highlights as it is every year was Brownlow Street Talk, with Sam not attending the medal this year this duty was left up to Brendan Fevola who provided one of the great Street Talks yet, he also left into Andrew Demetriou about reading out Round 2’s count rather than Round 1’s. That prompted a joke from Trevor saying that in this week’s Grand Final the AFL has decided to play the second quarter first.

At the end of the show the yearly Player Revue once again lit the stage up with players from just about all the AFL clubs performing their own piece. I for one don’t really get or understand what the Revue is all about, but it’s still entertaining none the less, however this years wasn’t as good as previous years.

Being in the crowd for the Grand Final Footy Show is a must do for any fan of the show and I highly recommend you go along. The best way to get tickets before they sell out if to by them just before the show announces that they have been released around 9:15pm on the night, that way you beat the sudden rush. Other things to happen in the commercial breaks were people being plucked out of the crowd for a dance off and they would win a Footy Show pack.

Check back at this post later on tonight where I will have some videos up and more images, especially of the opener which is hilarious and I will have at least one video if possible of what happened before the show started. Also come back later tonight for a first look at Andrew O’Keefe’s new talk show This Is Your Laugh for 7HD.

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