My Visit to The National Lottery Stars Show at BBC Television Centre in London, UK

The National Lottery Stars at the BBC.

This is my 4th visit to a Lottery Broadcast on Saturday 6 January 2001. This time was the National Lottery Stars hosted by Dale Winton. As in previous occasions, I requested a ticket to the show via the Internet. You do need to check the site every so often to see what was there. This time, it only took 5 days for the tickets to come

The great thing about this time is that I didn't have to rush around to get to the studios. I arrived in London from Birmingham on the train. Trust the 10:15 train I wanted to go on was cancelled, so I went on an earlier one which left at the time I wanted to go!

I arrived in London just before 12:30 and have so much time to visit places, including Madame Tussauds and the London Eye.

I started to panic a bit just before 6pm to get to the studios due to the London Underground problem (or the lack of trains!) I managed to arrived at Television Centre at 6:30pm. Thinking I was late, I rushed in. After airport security checks, I had a number sticker attached to my ticket. Lucky for me, it was ticket number 138 out of around 300. 

I headed into the audience suite and waited until we were called in. At just after 7pm, we were all called to the door and lead to the Studio. We then headed to Studio 1, television centre's biggest studio. On the way, I think we saw Dale Winton's Car in the car park. It has his initials on the number plate! Studio 1 doesn't look big inside!

I was lead to my seat, which was left of centre and about 9 rows from the front. Had a good look around the set. On the left, was the 2 Thunderball machines. On the right was the Lottery and Lottery Extra machines. The lottery balls were fully loaded. Next to the Draw Machines, a security guard was watching the machines.  In front was the stage. The main stage was towards the right and the interview area was towards the left. Above us was several microphones, a few television sets and lots of lights. At about 7:20pm, the entertained came onto the set and entertained us until broadcast time of 7:45pm. A few jokes were told, and the entertained made a few jokes about members of the studio audience, including some American people from New York. Theme of the entertainment was balls (lottery balls)!

3 minutes before broadcast, Dale Winton came on and introduced who was in the show. Some mad person behind me shouted "DALE, DALE" for most of the time before the show and a few times during the live broadcast. Dale nearly went up to this person but transmission time was only a minute away. He then walked off the stage.

Timing are approximate.

7:45pm. Show Time. Broadcasted live to the UK on BBC1.  The show started with the usual introduction from Dale Winton, including some jokes.

7:48pm. Mel B (Scary Spice) sang her new song. It took a while to recognise her as she looks so difference.

7:51pm. Dale Interviews Mel B, about what is happening at the moment. While this is going on, the stage was set up for the next act.

7:54pm. Dale introduced a new singer, Jonathon Wilkes, who never appeared on Television.

7:58pm. Thunderball Draw started by Jonathon Wilkes

8:01pm. Sarah Brightman was introduced onto the set signing "Going to Scarborough fair". In the studio, all the camera was all over each other. The portable camera trailing wire nearly tripped Sarah up. The camera operators just ran across the stage while the other cameras were filming.

8:05pm. Lottery Draw started by Sarah Brightman

8:08pm. Lottery Extra also started by Sarah Brightman. The person who was shouting "DALE" earlier whistled live on TV and watching back the video I recorded, you can hear it clearly. Alan (voice of the balls) said "Thank you in the middle of the draw!)

8:10pm. All the stars when on stage to say their final farewell.

8:12pm. Shows over. Dale thanked everyone for coming and then the funny comic came on and said "You can all go now"

While we all left the studio, I notice on the television screens about us, the whole show was shown backwards at extreme speeds! I also notice that when I nearly reached the exit, the Thunderball machine was reactivated. I think this is done to make sure the draw was random and also it could be the only way out for the balls.

That's it. I hope you have a feel of what it is like to be an audience for The National Lottery Stars. If you do manage to get into London and tickets are available, do make a trip and see it. It is now just the lottery, but entertaining fun.