I was a seat-filler for WWE Smackdown a few years ago. It was awkward to just plop down and have people look at you and question you. About halfway through the show I quit doing it because by then people were getting angry and aggravated by you asking people to get up in that row as well. Its pretty stupid. WWE takes all this crap waaaay too seriously. Nobody at home is watching the crowd for empty seats.
“What if multiple seat fillers all rushed for the same exit.. like the one that Toni Storm took?” Mr. Cornette is a national treasure. Protect him at all costs.
That line made me think of the old gif of people leaving "The Impact Zone" in droves. There was context of them filing out being recorded (I think it was a fire alarm from a pyro accident), but it was often repurposed to reflect sentiment on a bad match like people were just walking out mid-taping on a bullshit segment.
I was a seat filler several years back. We were sitting in the section behind the hard cameras. If a seat came open we were instructed where to go. The cool thing was that we ended up in some vacant deluxe seats above the floor section. They apparently belonged to season ticket holders for the Spurs. So my friend and I ended up staying there for the rest of the show. The seats were about 50 feet from the ring. All in all it was a fun night.
I have a friend who was a seat filler for WWE years ago just because he wanted a paycheck with "WWE" on it. I remember reading most of these rules then. Guess they haven't changed much.
In the distant past, thousands of people would do the most curious thing: they'd see a wrestling show they liked coming to town, pay for a ticket and then enjoy the festivities. Wouldn't be acceptable today of course.
Probably just too expensive. MLB and the NBA were gonna do that while they couldn't have crowds because of COVID, they gave up on it almost immediately because it's too big a hassle.
@@Cruising_On_Lake_Havasoma That and the crowds just looked phoney. The worst was the fake noise where you would hear a random roar of the crowd but nothing happened to merit it.
@@TRoller927 LOL yeah, it looks like everyone is going crazy except for everyone on camera. It just makes it even more obvious that whoever is in the ring has no heat.
Judging by what's going on with WWE nowadays, they're gonna need a lot of seat fillers. I watched Smackdown during the Gauntlet match for the IC title and heard crowd noise but.....no one shown on camera were moving their mouths to cheer or even got up to show excitement. So they have piped in crowd noise too.
I was at the taping and it was definitely quiet in the building. And the all state is an old arena with a wooden roof. When it’s loud, you can tell. They’re pumpkins in noise every week Forsure.
3 years from now and WWE will make "ratings fillers" - guys who will watch WWE free, but don't click off the channel when WWE is on, so WWE can compensate their falling in toilet ratings.
Botch of 2022, we don't want public know that we use seat fillers but they put it in official guidelines which are on internet and are not a secret to find LOL
I remember getting to be a seat filler with a few of my buddies with the connection of the multimedia class at my high-school. I can't remember which Raw it was, but i remember both Undertaker and HHH both returned to challenge for wrestlemainia. We sat in our seats for the first like hour waiting to be told to move around. Then the owners of the seats we thought were ours showed up. Turned out we hand ringside seats just left of the announcer table. Never has to do anything the entire night just enjoy the show
As a WWF fan.. If that's what Vinces statement was for WWF...I'll accept it all night long, because the show was amazing!!!..better than all of todays wrestling product..nowadays it is CLEAR wwe don't even TRY!!
This is the funniest thing I've listened to in a very long time. Crying. Only WWE could produce something so utterly ridiculous. Just imagine if WWE diverted energy from seat filling, pyro, lighting and many other aspects that are hideously overproduced onto a quality product.
"If asked why you suddeny showed up to sit in the previously occupied seat, tell them you're helping with the production crew" but "Don't tell anyone you're a seat filler." Just sit in the seat randomly, but don't tell them exactly why you're sitting in their spouse's seat. That is unnecessarily obtuse and contradictory.
Being a WWE seat filler has to be a ridiculous and embarrassing job. It has to be awkward as hell having to explain to someone or a group of people why you're taking someone else's seat, especially with a family or a group of friends. Either way, this is how you know that WWE is on rock bottom. Resorting to this shows that.
“Jerry, it was a whirlwind. They whisked us backstage, the media is swarming, champagne is flowing...whooo! I can't describe how great it is to win.” “That’s because you didn’t win.” 😂
I’m on my way there now from Tennessee. I have seat #1 on the isle that I paid a pretty penny for. To a say that I was absolutely pissed when I found out they were doing this would be an understatement.
@@Plaidnation_ Nah, I’m not hating on the people that took the opportunity. It just sucks to pay an outrageous price for a seat then the company let folks in for free.
9:20 don’t worry Jim, people here in Philadelphia won’t be accepting of getting moved and getting bossed around for the sake of television. Believe me, not wanting it but a fight would break out.
This is so ridiculous, so people are essentially doing WWE a favor by making their shows look more packed… making them sit beside total strangers, very uncomfortably by the way as those people have no clue who you are and why you were taking their loved ones seat… you’re not getting paid, but you’re allowed to buy alcohol and drink just as long as you don’t appear drunk, also WWE can keep the illusion which people know is false… That every seat is filled and nobody ever goes to the bathroom or to the concession stand. All because Vince McMahon doesn’t want anybody in the entertainment industry to know that he owns a wrestling company. He wants to act like he’s better than Wrestling, because he was and still is embarrassed by the stigma that has made him a billionaire. I just wanted to get that straight. Because the only thing he is doing, especially by putting out this rulebook and thinking that nobody was going to expose it online… He’s making his competition look even better. Because essentially what he is saying to everybody is, regardless that we have these billion dollar contracts with Fox and USA and we supposedly have some of the biggest superstars in the world… We can barely fill half an arena, because our writing and long-term booking is shit. Blaming talent for not getting over when you are handing them a big heap of B-movie script that they can’t go off of or they’re fired. You obviously hired these people and brought them to the main roster because of the talent they had, which they can’t show, because they are completely buried under Hollywood writers Who are the same people who wrote scripts for movies like Sharknado. Which by the way, actually got over more than anything in WWE in the past 10 years. As far as I’m concerned, Vince just needs to sell the company since he obviously doesn’t trust Paul and his daughter to run it. Even stripping him of his baby that he created from scratch. Turning it into another overproduced, under written stepchild of WWE programming. It’s no wonder people like Toni Storm don’t want to be there anymore. I am not sure that anybody actually wants to be there anymore. Except those who are doing everything for a paycheck. Which, I totally understand if we’re getting paid enough then why not ride out the contract. But, professionally I’m sure most of them are left very unfulfilled and feel the same way I do and 99.9% of the fans do. So, seat fillers is what it has come down to. LoL.
I was a seat filler as recently as 2019. We sat behind the hardcam and they have a guy who literally has a job to grab a couple people at a time to fill the seat. I'll tell you that people do NOT like you going to their seat and sitting in it and their friends/family get really pissy and you have to explain the whole thing, its annoying. A friend of mine nearly got in a fight. Ive been offered to go back a few times since then and to be honest, it's not worth going through all the trouble just to attend for free cause WWE is damn near unwatchable right now. Not worth nearly getting into actual fights with people just to watch bad TV for free that i wouldn't watch at home.
WWE need to learn from Lithuanian basketball fans, who bring a lifesize cartboard cut out of Ozzy Osbourne with a Lirhuanina basketball team shirt to every game.
I was a seat filler for Monday Night Raw in Edmonton in 2011. They allowed my 12 year old son to be a seat filler with me. Fun side note, it was the episode of Raw when Cena got his shirt thrown back in the main even vs Punk. That was my last live wrestling event
@@daleharris3809 just free tickets. We got moved around a few times early in the show. Moved to hard camera seats during the Superstars taping and eventually were moved to great seats for the entire Raw episode.
When Raw and Smackdown were at MSG a couple of years ago. I had the worst seats for Smackdown, 10 mins in, someone from MSG offered us tickets down in tv viewed section to make it look full on TV
Rules: Pretend like you enjoy the product. Cheer so we can have b roll footage to use to pretend, as if someone is over, coupled with our canned cheers/pops. Don't attack the talent, thus ruining our already ruined reputation.
The guidelines that the Dynamic Duo read for WWE seat filling is very standard instructions for seat fillers since time immortal. Years ago when I was young and didn’t have a pot to pee but wanted to go see live shows a friend of mine got me hooked up with several local promotion companies to be a seat filler which in turn I also got free tickets to shows and events that were not sold out as sort of payment/way of saying thanks for being a seat filler and being willing to move around during televised events to make arenas look filled. During the time I was doing that I don’t think I missed a WWE/WWF or a WCW show that was in my area and commonly got offers to attend wrestling events/shows 75 to 150 miles or more from me including offers to pay for a motel room for a night if I would bring at least one other person with me. My point is the guidelines that they were making light are pretty standard industry wide regardless of what the event is.
I thought they just moved all the people that bought tickets behind the hard camera to the seats on the opposite side??? They had quite the production of this in Toronto for a smackdown couple years ago. They moved a couple entire sections across the arena.
That must've been the "old way" -- that happened to me in the mid-90s during the New Generation era. As people were filing into their purchased seats, venue staff were literally ushering them sections over and saying, "Take any open seat." -- Then the black tarps were pulled down over the empty sections.
My idiot sister’s idiot baby daddy religiously does seat filling for WWE when they come to Tampa. I went once, it was the most awkward situation I’ve ever been in. And I’m awkward as hell. 😜
It says a lot about a wrestling company when the bigger issue is the production crew worrying about what it looks like out in the audience and not what is going on in the ring. Besides the guy with long hair and the Where's Waldo guy with the stripped red and white shirt who always occupy the front rows at PPVs, I only care what the audience looks like when I physically go to a TV taping and see half the arena is absolutely empty and laugh a little.
I feel like designated seat fillers should have to wear a special hat or something to distinguish them from everyone else, kind of like how Hollywood directors wear a blank baseball cap on movie sets. I know it kind of defeats the purpose a little, but it would amuse me greatly.
Seat filler is kind of an insult to people who payed to see the show. if you payed 60 bucks to see the show wouldn't it make you just a lil bit angry to find out that the person sitting next to you got payed 60 bucks to sit there? It's literally ass backward thinking from the promotion!
@@Am0ment0fB well when the seat filler gets a front row seat for free an but you had to pay 60 bucks to sit in the 15th row then maybe you'll get what i'm saying.
@@El-ingobernable to be clear, last I heard it’s just a rumor people spread around to go against AEW Could be true but I’ve not heard anything confirming it but rumors And it should say a LOT that said rumors are mostly in message boards and comments sections without anyone, to my knowledge to be fair, pointing to a credible source where this rumor state Tony does this
What the blue flying hell? I know they used to have people move to seats around the camera shot areas if they were too many empty seats within camera range in WCW decades ago, but, this is utterly ridiculous, especially with Coronamania running wild thru the E..
"You can take pictures and post on social media but don't tell people that you're a seat filler." Then enact a No Social Media rule! This is worse than TNA/Impact paying people to attend shows years ago...
I can see the fans playing musical chairs during wrestlers entrance music, then when the wrestler (or wrestlers) get to into the ring and their music stops all the fans claim their seats
If Jeff Hardy didn't have a meet and greet my friends and I would probably go to the Omaha Smackdown and do this tbh. We'd much rather pay $50 to talk to him and get a bunch of stuff signed lol.
This is the single dumbest thing I have ever heard. So you're at a Raw, SD or PLE with a friend, or family member who gets up to go to the washroom, or get a drink, or whatever. Suddenly some random person comes over and tries to sit in their seat? So WWE, instead of showing an empty seat on tv, would rather show confused fans arguing? It's not like this is an awards show. Where this is a known and expected thing.
WWE probably has tv viewer fillers, too. People to fill in those Nielsen ratings for them. "When we see our ratings drop, a WWE official will instruct you to turn on all of your Nielsen boxes at once"
WCW was notorious for that shit. Especially in the pre-Nitro era, back before they actually started drawing paying crowds (for the purposes of this discussion I consider WCW to have started in 1991) they went through the whole playbook. Paid fans, handing out signs, instructing the crowd who to boo/cheer, really fake sounding crowd noise added in during post-production, herding all the fans at PPVs to the hard camera side because you only drew 2,000 people in a building that holds 15,000 (WWE has been guilty of this one too), you name it. It was pretty embarrassing.
I remember back in 2009, maybe early 2010.. I met this guy who worked for a radio station locally & he had dozens of tickets & told me WWE had instructed him to give out as many tickets as he could.. as long as he knew the people would attend.. and even back then, you'd get there.. and half the arena at least was empty
It's sad that attendance has gotten so bad that a missing person is obvious, to the point you need seat fillers. I remember a time when it was can't miss and you didn't have to worry about fans leaving there seats. Or just leaving in general
WWE has "Seat-Fillers" and Tony Khan buys Seats to increase the attendance. Shall we keep going? AEW has fan plants and mic'ed seats, WWE used in piped in crowd noise, but so does AEW. Water is Wet.
"Feel free to let them know you are assisting the television production" I feel like that would be like Homer Simpson telling the guy he looks like he needs help satisfying his wife
Was a seat filler at the smackdown tapings in Glasgow a few years back. Wwe staff couldn't have been nicer with us. Basically got ticket to the event as payment for possibly covering a gap on the hard cam. None of the 20 or so in the group had to and we all just watched the event.
This is so ridiculous, if they want to fill seats they just give away free tickets. If they did employ "seat fillers" they wouldn't say "don't tell anyone about this" in the instructions because that is sure to become public, they would make you sign a basic NDA which nobody would read even if it did become public.
Wwe does or has fir several years now sold or give out their approved signs for tv tapoings. AEW has some community get togethers with Brandy Rhodes to mske up signs with kids. They had an Arts and crafts for the small kids begore the Arlanta shows.
Not sure how many tickets they sold tonight but it better if they rent/hire arenas that holds 5-7,000 seats rather go to these big arenas or prioritize which seats they want to sell first then put other seats on sale
It wasn’t just WCW in the early 90’s with a little kid problem. WWF Superstars/ Main Event had so many little boys in that front row it was creepy. I remember thinking, “what kind of audience are you trying to get? NAMBLA!?!”.
Won't that be distracting seeing the same "fans" in every shot? Not watching the action, but searching the audience? Like when you go to concert and security is looking for someone. Everyone in the area looks at security, then looks where they're looking
WWE will eventually need Ring Fillers with all their "Superstars" being released.😆
They still have over 100 people on the roster. Thats more than they had during the attitude era.
@@bipolarminddroppings Yes. I'm just making jokes.
@@bipolarminddroppings homie doesn't know what a joke is
@@owl509 homie don't play that.
@@anubis8181 play what 💀
It was so much easier back in the day when Vince actually produced programming where real fans filled the seats.
I was a seat-filler for WWE Smackdown a few years ago. It was awkward to just plop down and have people look at you and question you. About halfway through the show I quit doing it because by then people were getting angry and aggravated by you asking people to get up in that row as well. Its pretty stupid. WWE takes all this crap waaaay too seriously. Nobody at home is watching the crowd for empty seats.
I actually do...
Yeah we totally do. Lol it’s like where’s Waldo. “Where’s are all the empty seats they’re hiding” lol
Thats what I was wondering how the the people around you would react.
Not very many are watching at all
@@user-vj2md3kf2t yeah and you also like obscure wrestling shows and wrestlers, as based on your replies here on your channel lol
“What if multiple seat fillers all rushed for the same exit.. like the one that Toni Storm took?” Mr. Cornette is a national treasure. Protect him at all costs.
That line made me think of the old gif of people leaving "The Impact Zone" in droves. There was context of them filing out being recorded (I think it was a fire alarm from a pyro accident), but it was often repurposed to reflect sentiment on a bad match like people were just walking out mid-taping on a bullshit segment.
It's a shame Jim cornette is not on wwe creative
Thought I was going to piss myself from laughing at that
I was a seat filler several years back.
We were sitting in the section behind the hard cameras. If a seat came open we were instructed where to go.
The cool thing was that we ended up in some vacant deluxe seats above the floor section. They apparently belonged to season ticket holders for the Spurs. So my friend and I ended up staying there for the rest of the show. The seats were about 50 feet from the ring.
All in all it was a fun night.
By the last quarter of a show, anyone from the back rows become seat fillers.
Do you remember If it was smackdown/ raw / or was it a ppv
@@stephonwilliams5232I believe it was Raw.
I have a friend who was a seat filler for WWE years ago just because he wanted a paycheck with "WWE" on it. I remember reading most of these rules then. Guess they haven't changed much.
How much did he get paid per paycheck?
Doesn’t pay anything, just free tickets
@@chrisclark6562 Free is good ! 👍🏻 😊
Then why did yer man say he wanted a cheque with WWE on it?
@@ken.f.c.1977 cause he’s lying lol
In the distant past, thousands of people would do the most curious thing: they'd see a wrestling show they liked coming to town, pay for a ticket and then enjoy the festivities. Wouldn't be acceptable today of course.
* in "sports entertainment "
Considering WWE's contempt for its viewers, I'm surprised they don't just use all-CGI crowds nowadays.
Probably just too expensive. MLB and the NBA were gonna do that while they couldn't have crowds because of COVID, they gave up on it almost immediately because it's too big a hassle.
@@Cruising_On_Lake_Havasoma That and the crowds just looked phoney. The worst was the fake noise where you would hear a random roar of the crowd but nothing happened to merit it.
@@TRoller927 LOL yeah, it looks like everyone is going crazy except for everyone on camera. It just makes it even more obvious that whoever is in the ring has no heat.
im more excited to watch these seat fillers in the crowd than any of the matches lol
Judging by what's going on with WWE nowadays, they're gonna need a lot of seat fillers. I watched Smackdown during the Gauntlet match for the IC title and heard crowd noise but.....no one shown on camera were moving their mouths to cheer or even got up to show excitement. So they have piped in crowd noise too.
Maybe they were all ventriloquists.
They've been doing that for years. Once you notice the fake crowd noise you can't stop noticing it 🤦♂️😂🤣
They acted like the crowd being gone during covid was such a big deal... Yet when they do have a crowd, they might as well be cardboard cut outs.
I was at the taping and it was definitely quiet in the building. And the all state is an old arena with a wooden roof. When it’s loud, you can tell. They’re pumpkins in noise every week Forsure.
This can be a great punishment on Impractical Jokers where the loser have to occupy random seats with no explanation
Sal or Murr lol they almost always lose lol
@@royalty843 It be a great punishment for Sal, because he always feel awkward in that kind of situations
@@Transitfan93 and him being a huge germaphobe
Instead of acting like they have a huge audience, they should try to figure out why their attendance keeps dwindling and fix it.
But that would make sense. And making sense is for other people.
Can’t do that, pal! The egg segments might get cut!
At least wwe understands that most people can't watch their product sober
3 years from now and WWE will make "ratings fillers" - guys who will watch WWE free, but don't click off the channel when WWE is on, so WWE can compensate their falling in toilet ratings.
"We do not want the general public knowing that we use seat fillers"
Botch of 2022, we don't want public know that we use seat fillers but they put it in official guidelines which are on internet and are not a secret to find LOL
I remember getting to be a seat filler with a few of my buddies with the connection of the multimedia class at my high-school. I can't remember which Raw it was, but i remember both Undertaker and HHH both returned to challenge for wrestlemainia.
We sat in our seats for the first like hour waiting to be told to move around. Then the owners of the seats we thought were ours showed up. Turned out we hand ringside seats just left of the announcer table. Never has to do anything the entire night just enjoy the show
When someone in my family gets up, I don't want anyone grabbing the empty seat.
“We are Hollywood. We're entertainment, and that's what the World Wrestling Federation is all about.” - Vince McMahon
As a WWF fan.. If that's what Vinces statement was for WWF...I'll accept it all night long, because the show was amazing!!!..better than all of todays wrestling product..nowadays it is CLEAR wwe don't even TRY!!
*WWF* is great. WWE is shit.😁
This is the funniest thing I've listened to in a very long time. Crying. Only WWE could produce something so utterly ridiculous. Just imagine if WWE diverted energy from seat filling, pyro, lighting and many other aspects that are hideously overproduced onto a quality product.
"If asked why you suddeny showed up to sit in the previously occupied seat, tell them you're helping with the production crew"
but
"Don't tell anyone you're a seat filler."
Just sit in the seat randomly, but don't tell them exactly why you're sitting in their spouse's seat. That is unnecessarily obtuse and contradictory.
1:42 “what if there are no empty seats?”
Oh there are for sure empty seats available
How do you think Michael Cole got his Job?
@@totallybored5526 "daddy says" probably happened.
Being a WWE seat filler has to be a ridiculous and embarrassing job. It has to be awkward as hell having to explain to someone or a group of people why you're taking someone else's seat, especially with a family or a group of friends.
Either way, this is how you know that WWE is on rock bottom. Resorting to this shows that.
It’s a good hustle if you don’t want to pay for the event. I do it all the time in Houston and I only had to fill a seat once and that was at a Raw.
@@ronlinrich Maybe on some days, you wouldn't have to do as much moving around as others would.
I don't know, this means Tarpy will be out of job.. Or be future endeavored..
They’ve literally been doing this for years and and years and years and years. Chill out
@@wallyjackson9543 I didn't know that was a thing for years until recently. It's one of those things that doesn't get brought up as much to me.
I cant wait for the pics and vids of the half empty arena with seat fillers running every where
“Jerry, it was a whirlwind. They whisked us backstage, the media is swarming, champagne is flowing...whooo! I can't describe how great it is to win.”
“That’s because you didn’t win.” 😂
I absolutely love how wwe repects kayfabe with seat fillers more than they do with Total Divas/Bellas
Musical Chairs is not too far off with WWE....in fact they already have played Divas Musical Chairs on TV in ring back in the 1st run of NXT
I’m on my way there now from Tennessee. I have seat #1 on the isle that I paid a pretty penny for. To a say that I was absolutely pissed when I found out they were doing this would be an understatement.
@@Plaidnation_ Nah, I’m not hating on the people that took the opportunity. It just sucks to pay an outrageous price for a seat then the company let folks in for free.
Jim’s out here exposing the business again 😂😂
🤣🤣🤣
The Wrestling Business has been exposed for 30 years
Tomorrow we will probably go on a 30 minute rant on how somebody else is exposing the business.
"We can not guarantee your.. SAFETY!" 😂🤣👏👏👏
9:20 don’t worry Jim, people here in Philadelphia won’t be accepting of getting moved and getting bossed around for the sake of television. Believe me, not wanting it but a fight would break out.
Philly stay rowdy! Especially in the 2300 Arena...
“You must be willing to be apart from your friends and loved ones”
Sounds like something from the pamphlet they give to talent upon signing
I would hope that if they're actually friends or people you love that you left them at home rather than subject them to a WWE show.
This is so ridiculous, so people are essentially doing WWE a favor by making their shows look more packed… making them sit beside total strangers, very uncomfortably by the way as those people have no clue who you are and why you were taking their loved ones seat… you’re not getting paid, but you’re allowed to buy alcohol and drink just as long as you don’t appear drunk, also WWE can keep the illusion which people know is false… That every seat is filled and nobody ever goes to the bathroom or to the concession stand. All because Vince McMahon doesn’t want anybody in the entertainment industry to know that he owns a wrestling company. He wants to act like he’s better than Wrestling, because he was and still is embarrassed by the stigma that has made him a billionaire.
I just wanted to get that straight. Because the only thing he is doing, especially by putting out this rulebook and thinking that nobody was going to expose it online… He’s making his competition look even better. Because essentially what he is saying to everybody is, regardless that we have these billion dollar contracts with Fox and USA and we supposedly have some of the biggest superstars in the world… We can barely fill half an arena, because our writing and long-term booking is shit. Blaming talent for not getting over when you are handing them a big heap of B-movie script that they can’t go off of or they’re fired. You obviously hired these people and brought them to the main roster because of the talent they had, which they can’t show, because they are completely buried under Hollywood writers Who are the same people who wrote scripts for movies like Sharknado. Which by the way, actually got over more than anything in WWE in the past 10 years.
As far as I’m concerned, Vince just needs to sell the company since he obviously doesn’t trust Paul and his daughter to run it. Even stripping him of his baby that he created from scratch. Turning it into another overproduced, under written stepchild of WWE programming. It’s no wonder people like Toni Storm don’t want to be there anymore. I am not sure that anybody actually wants to be there anymore. Except those who are doing everything for a paycheck. Which, I totally understand if we’re getting paid enough then why not ride out the contract. But, professionally I’m sure most of them are left very unfulfilled and feel the same way I do and 99.9% of the fans do.
So, seat fillers is what it has come down to. LoL.
I was a seat filler as recently as 2019. We sat behind the hardcam and they have a guy who literally has a job to grab a couple people at a time to fill the seat. I'll tell you that people do NOT like you going to their seat and sitting in it and their friends/family get really pissy and you have to explain the whole thing, its annoying. A friend of mine nearly got in a fight.
Ive been offered to go back a few times since then and to be honest, it's not worth going through all the trouble just to attend for free cause WWE is damn near unwatchable right now. Not worth nearly getting into actual fights with people just to watch bad TV for free that i wouldn't watch at home.
WWE need to learn from Lithuanian basketball fans, who bring a lifesize cartboard cut out of Ozzy Osbourne with a Lirhuanina basketball team shirt to every game.
I was a seat filler for Monday Night Raw in Edmonton in 2011. They allowed my 12 year old son to be a seat filler with me. Fun side note, it was the episode of Raw when Cena got his shirt thrown back in the main even vs Punk. That was my last live wrestling event
Do they compensate you in some way? Free food, merchandise, etc?
@@daleharris3809 just free tickets. We got moved around a few times early in the show. Moved to hard camera seats during the Superstars taping and eventually were moved to great seats for the entire Raw episode.
Does Edmonton still have that luxurious indoor water park
@@brianfinn6800 yes they do inside West Edmonton Mall
I would bring "I'm seat filler sign"
This event may be worth watching just to see fights on live TV over seating while people wrestle
When Raw and Smackdown were at MSG a couple of years ago. I had the worst seats for Smackdown, 10 mins in, someone from MSG offered us tickets down in tv viewed section to make it look full on TV
Rules: Pretend like you enjoy the product. Cheer so we can have b roll footage to use to pretend, as if someone is over, coupled with our canned cheers/pops. Don't attack the talent, thus ruining our already ruined reputation.
I saw seat filling first hand in NXT Dallas. Two different guys sat next to me during the show.
The guidelines that the Dynamic Duo read for WWE seat filling is very standard instructions for seat fillers since time immortal. Years ago when I was young and didn’t have a pot to pee but wanted to go see live shows a friend of mine got me hooked up with several local promotion companies to be a seat filler which in turn I also got free tickets to shows and events that were not sold out as sort of payment/way of saying thanks for being a seat filler and being willing to move around during televised events to make arenas look filled. During the time I was doing that I don’t think I missed a WWE/WWF or a WCW show that was in my area and commonly got offers to attend wrestling events/shows 75 to 150 miles or more from me including offers to pay for a motel room for a night if I would bring at least one other person with me. My point is the guidelines that they were making light are pretty standard industry wide regardless of what the event is.
I thought they just moved all the people that bought tickets behind the hard camera to the seats on the opposite side??? They had quite the production of this in Toronto for a smackdown couple years ago. They moved a couple entire sections across the arena.
That must've been the "old way" -- that happened to me in the mid-90s during the New Generation era. As people were filing into their purchased seats, venue staff were literally ushering them sections over and saying, "Take any open seat." -- Then the black tarps were pulled down over the empty sections.
My idiot sister’s idiot baby daddy religiously does seat filling for WWE when they come to Tampa. I went once, it was the most awkward situation I’ve ever been in. And I’m awkward as hell. 😜
It says a lot about a wrestling company when the bigger issue is the production crew worrying about what it looks like out in the audience and not what is going on in the ring.
Besides the guy with long hair and the Where's Waldo guy with the stripped red and white shirt who always occupy the front rows at PPVs, I only care what the audience looks like when I physically go to a TV taping and see half the arena is absolutely empty and laugh a little.
It is so funny how pathetic wwe has become.
Jim & Brian were so funny, I had to listen to this again.
I feel like designated seat fillers should have to wear a special hat or something to distinguish them from everyone else, kind of like how Hollywood directors wear a blank baseball cap on movie sets. I know it kind of defeats the purpose a little, but it would amuse me greatly.
Travis drawing Kramer with Norm MacDonalds face haha RIP NORM!
I've done this before. They tell you where to sit. Super simple.
Seat filler is kind of an insult to people who payed to see the show. if you payed 60 bucks to see the show wouldn't it make you just a lil bit angry to find out that the person sitting next to you got payed 60 bucks to sit there? It's literally ass backward thinking from the promotion!
Everyone does it bro, it’s a similar thing as putting talent in the front row
I guess you're also upset that Tony Khan just buys his own tickets? They both give away tickets all the time. Ha.
@@Am0ment0fB well when the seat filler gets a front row seat for free an but you had to pay 60 bucks to sit in the 15th row then maybe you'll get what i'm saying.
@@Am0ment0fB where is the proof of Tony buying tickets?
@@El-ingobernable to be clear, last I heard it’s just a rumor people spread around to go against AEW
Could be true but I’ve not heard anything confirming it but rumors
And it should say a LOT that said rumors are mostly in message boards and comments sections without anyone, to my knowledge to be fair, pointing to a credible source where this rumor state Tony does this
What the blue flying hell? I know they used to have people move to seats around the camera shot areas if they were too many empty seats within camera range in WCW decades ago, but, this is utterly ridiculous, especially with Coronamania running wild thru the E..
"You can take pictures and post on social media but don't tell people that you're a seat filler."
Then enact a No Social Media rule!
This is worse than TNA/Impact paying people to attend shows years ago...
I can see the fans playing musical chairs during wrestlers entrance music, then when the wrestler (or wrestlers) get to into the ring and their music stops all the fans claim their seats
I live in Atlanta and am able to drink without appearing "visibly intoxicated." Time to dust off the "Poopdog 3:16" sign and get some of this action.
Disgusting vice indulger
WWE should go back to covering the empty seats with black tarp.
Remember when TNA was paying people to go to their TV tapings? This is almost as cringey, but TNA lost money doing it so they win.
Can’t wait for the seat filler omnibus!
When accepting this job, remember you will be under review every 90min.
9:06 LOVE that Cornette used a Dick Van Dyke show reference!
If Jeff Hardy didn't have a meet and greet my friends and I would probably go to the Omaha Smackdown and do this tbh. We'd much rather pay $50 to talk to him and get a bunch of stuff signed lol.
This is the single dumbest thing I have ever heard.
So you're at a Raw, SD or PLE with a friend, or family member who gets up to go to the washroom, or get a drink, or whatever. Suddenly some random person comes over and tries to sit in their seat?
So WWE, instead of showing an empty seat on tv, would rather show confused fans arguing? It's not like this is an awards show. Where this is a known and expected thing.
I got to be a seat filler for a PPV. Free seats and nobody tapped us for anything. It was Awesome
Sounds like they put more thought into how to fill an empty chair than they do in remaining creative.
If it’s this big of an issue to where they need seat fillers, DON’T BOOK 10,000 - 20,000 SEAT VENUES.
WWE probably has tv viewer fillers, too. People to fill in those Nielsen ratings for them.
"When we see our ratings drop, a WWE official will instruct you to turn on all of your Nielsen boxes at once"
WWF, WWE has been given out signs for years
WCW was notorious for that shit. Especially in the pre-Nitro era, back before they actually started drawing paying crowds (for the purposes of this discussion I consider WCW to have started in 1991) they went through the whole playbook. Paid fans, handing out signs, instructing the crowd who to boo/cheer, really fake sounding crowd noise added in during post-production, herding all the fans at PPVs to the hard camera side because you only drew 2,000 people in a building that holds 15,000 (WWE has been guilty of this one too), you name it. It was pretty embarrassing.
Anyone remember WCW Saturday Night had the revolving ring going in a circle.Damn that shit was stupid
They gave them all these rules so that the people would be focused on following the rules and not the shitty matches
Now they just have to figure out how to implement the seat filler mode in the next video game.
I remember back in 2009, maybe early 2010.. I met this guy who worked for a radio station locally & he had dozens of tickets & told me WWE had instructed him to give out as many tickets as he could.. as long as he knew the people would attend.. and even back then, you'd get there.. and half the arena at least was empty
This was the first tme I heard of this, but apparently, it is nothing new. Brians laugh at the 5:00 mark, lol.
It's sad that attendance has gotten so bad that a missing person is obvious, to the point you need seat fillers. I remember a time when it was can't miss and you didn't have to worry about fans leaving there seats. Or just leaving in general
WWE giving seat fillers signs, makes me think of Bill Engvall "Here's your sign"
WWE has "Seat-Fillers" and Tony Khan buys Seats to increase the attendance. Shall we keep going? AEW has fan plants and mic'ed seats, WWE used in piped in crowd noise, but so does AEW. Water is Wet.
so where is the proof that Tony buys tickets? and wwe also had plants..
The signs are there: the end is nigh! Who'd thought WWE would collapse before ole Vince JR does? Oh my god, what a giant Bee Ess...
i was given a sign at a house show in new jersey but it was from the local radio station, it wasn't from wwe itself.
The WWF is an embarrassment these days, Bucky and McMahon need to go.
Bucky needed to go 30 years ago.
"Feel free to let them know you are assisting the television production"
I feel like that would be like Homer Simpson telling the guy he looks like he needs help satisfying his wife
How many seats can a seat filler fill if a seat filler can fill seats?
Seat fillers going to be distraction watching it on tv
Are these seat fillers paid? If they are I don't think they're buying 7 $10 beers.
This is genuinely hilarious 🤣
Feel free to bring a sign. In fact bring extras.
"If you have a beer, and the seat next to you is empty.....use your beer to cover the empty seat!"
Was a seat filler at the smackdown tapings in Glasgow a few years back. Wwe staff couldn't have been nicer with us.
Basically got ticket to the event as payment for possibly covering a gap on the hard cam. None of the 20 or so in the group had to and we all just watched the event.
Everybody is holding their phones now & reporting
This is so ridiculous, if they want to fill seats they just give away free tickets. If they did employ "seat fillers" they wouldn't say "don't tell anyone about this" in the instructions because that is sure to become public, they would make you sign a basic NDA which nobody would read even if it did become public.
Is there any confirmed way of applying to be a sit filler?
Although, going to one of their shows in the middle of the pandemic just seems reckless.
Always surprise me that Jim; besides his DESPISE for New York, he is a big Seinfeld fan
Like the rest of the world, Jim secretly loves NY! Ha.
I was a seat filler once, I was a paying fan and half way through the show they told me to move to another seat because fans have left. Smackdown 2008
Guess I’m Getting Into Mania For Free. Lol
The no-drinking thing makes sense, don't want a seat-filler pissing themselves and putting seats out of action for the paying crowd.
This has been going on for years...and it has led to problems...I've been to tons of wwe events...seen this alo it's nothing new
Wwe does or has fir several years now sold or give out their approved signs for tv tapoings. AEW has some community get togethers with Brandy Rhodes to mske up signs with kids. They had an Arts and crafts for the small kids begore the Arlanta shows.
The sign thing goes way back. WWF was doing that in my town in 1987; I assume it was standard.
Ctrl+ to zoom in
Ctrl- to zoom out
Not sure how many tickets they sold tonight but it better if they rent/hire arenas that holds 5-7,000 seats rather go to these big arenas or prioritize which seats they want to sell first then put other seats on sale
Just imagine the days when people wanted to stay in their seats so not to miss any action....... but since perception is reality, you have this BS
It wasn’t just WCW in the early 90’s with a little kid problem. WWF Superstars/ Main Event had so many little boys in that front row it was creepy. I remember thinking, “what kind of audience are you trying to get? NAMBLA!?!”.
Won't that be distracting seeing the same "fans" in every shot? Not watching the action, but searching the audience? Like when you go to concert and security is looking for someone. Everyone in the area looks at security, then looks where they're looking
"Why is everyone staring at me? Aw, shit..."
They tell you what seats to sit in and there is a guy who tells you where to sit when the seats become empty