Remember when I said I was going to NYC to be a “special” audience member at Martha Stewart’s Show? I headed up to NYC on the Amtrak from my hometown to NYC with Sarah, Whitney, Jennifer, Julie and Julie’s adorable kids.
We arrived in the city around 7pm, and made our way to our hotel, Holiday Inn Express Madison Square Garden. It’s a block or so over from the train station, and 2 blocks to the studio where Martha is filmed, so it’s was a perfect location.
We met up with Bay, and later the rest of our crew including Liz, Sarah, Jo-Lynne, Mindi, Colleen, Joey, and another Colleen! I love that the Philly area has so many bloggers. It’s nice to be able to use the words blog and post and not have someone cross their eyes.
The hotel staff was awesome, especially Gloria, who just happened to know Julie’s sister! Small world even in NYC! Our room was New York City sized, but comfy, and when we noticed a problem with our door a maintenance man came up right away to fix it. (that’s what I call service!)
We headed over to Roger Smith Hotel, to a jam packed Tweet-up, which was unfortunate since I missed meeting a few people I really wanted to. Katja, Erica, and Carol to start. I did get to talk to Cecily and AlphaMom for a bit.
After awhile we called our limo driver, and headed back to our hotel. Wait I did tell you that, right? We ended up getting a limo ride to the tweetup! It was my 1st limo ride, and yes it was questionably clean, but we still had fun. That’s how Philly moms roll!
The next morning we were up early enjoying our free breakfast, and then most of us headed to Starbucks for our morning caffeine. Don’t we look like a Starbucks ad? Hello, Starbucks you should totally sponsor us all to go to BlogHer ’10!
L to R Mindi, Jo-Lynne, Whitney, me (in foreground), Colleen, Colleen, Julie, Liz, and Sarah.
I was full of anticipation, and we finally got inside and they put us in a big pen. We tried to mingle with the other bloggers, but they kept telling us to sit down. We managed a few photo ops though.
Finally they started calling everyone to go in, and we had to look at our tickets to see what was on them before we could go in. Turns out some people had numbers and got to sit in front, and others had lines (like me) and had to sit in back. Thankfully we were told we might be on camera and sure enough we were! Here’s Liz and I sitting in the audience. (with Melissa, BusyGirl, and Grace behind us)
Joey Kola came out and warmed us up, and then Martha came out with all the guests. To say I was let down is kind of an understatement. We knew special guest, Brian Williams, was in Haiti covering more important matters, but I was disappointed the special guest wasn’t The Pioneer Woman.
Martha’s daughter, Alexis is either a good actress, or genuinely is disgusted by her mother. Either way it was uncomfortable and made for bad TV. Alexis’ co-host and cohort Jennifer Hutt was another matter. She was gorgeous in person, and also seemed genuinely happy to be on the show.
The next guest, Pim of ChezPim made what smelled like a delightful pad thai. Sadly we didn’t get to sample it, something I am still slightly bitter about. We received Pim’s book, The Foodie Handbook, as swag, and I can’t wait to delve into it.
Martha also hosted Martha Moments blogger, Andrew Ritchie, making yarn cards (not my thing, but cute!), and Jeff and Martha blogger, Jeff. Jeff copied Julie Powell’s (of Julie and Julia fame) idea and is cooking his way through Martha’s Cooking School cookbook. Jeff’s segment was my favorite, but sadly we did not get to sample the divine looking orange almond cake he and Martha iced. Martha also spoke with Hire Me Martha blogger, Brianna, who got to spend the rest of the day with Martha’s staff.
Are you sensing a theme here? It had a lot to do with Martha, and very little to do with blogging. Though all of the guests have blogs, the focus of the show was not blogging.
I was surprised that they didn’t think to check their well-vetted audience (we had to apply, and some people flew in from the West Coast to be on!) for guests.
On the other hand the set was amazing, Martha looked great (including her 6 inch! heels), and it was great to see, and meet other bloggers.
At the end of the show I had hoped we would have time to chat more but they sent us through the building like cattle and spit us out on the COLD street, so we ended up heading off in various directions.
Would I do it again? Only as a guest. What it could happen! This probably sounds blasé but it was fun, but not something that bears repeating.
As is often the case, The Martha Show misunderstood the point of inviting bloggers to a taping of her show. It would have been much more fun if she had focused more on blogging, balancing blogging with work and family commitments, or even basics of blogging.
I did have a fabulous time in NYC the rest of the day with many thanks to Sarah, Jennifer, and Chloe. Chloe is a native NYer and steered us all over the city with ease.
And more importantly my love affair with NYC grows. I fall more in love with New York City every time I visit.
Kelly
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