Jenna Domingo: I walked the Red Carpet at the MTV VMA's!

This was an AMAZING experience and I decided I had to blog about it! First I am going to tell you a few background stories that lead up to the VMA experience!

I am signed up with a casting company and was alerted that they were seeking people for the VMA's, things like seat fillers, pit fans, red carpet, etc. On this website you have to upload a full body shot and appear to be the ages between 18-25, I guess I still look young so I went for it. I applied for all of the different categories and one that I got picked for was a Taylor Swift pre-performance taping. I was ecstatic about this and called my sister Dana up right away with the news! She is a huge Taylor Swift fan and was so excited about attending this exclusive taping. I have done these tapings before, one with Christina Aguilera and it was pretty great and we got to meet the celeb and everything so I figured it would be a similar experience and Dana would love it.

It was two weeks before the VMA's and we had to be at the Grand Central Hyatt at 8:00pm. The ticket said to check in by 8:00pm but no later than 10:00pm. My sister arrived early with some friends (who were also picked) and got in line. I however was running a bit late. I had to run 5 miles (ugh marathon training) and take a quick shower at the my Aunt's and then jumped on the subway to meet her. I am thinking to myself, it won't matter if I am a few minutes late, WRONG! Dana in the meantime is texting me to hurry up and they are letting people in. By the time I got there they stopped letting people in completely! I say ok don't worry, there are only 20 people in front of us and we will get in. Then they make an announcement that they have 150 people and they are at capacity! They are going to hold 60 more people just in case and we luckily (or unluckily) were part of those 60 people.

So make a long story short, they made us wait for 3 hours and in the end turned us away anyway! UGH! I felt so bad for my poor sister who got all dolled up and took the train in early, only to be turned away. Plus all her friends got in and got to meet Taylor Swift and hang out all night while they taped. They videoed everything down in the subway and were going to air it at the VMA's. Pretty cool but Dana got over it and said 2 days later she was seeing Taylor at Madison Square Garden and had 10th row tickets.

Quick side story - Dana got her Taylor Swift concert tickets on Craig's list for $150 and they ended up being FAKE TICKETS! What is her luck? Two times in the same week she gets denied at seeing Taylor Swift? She ended up buying new tickets on the street and got in but had to spend another $150. Poor kid.

Ok fast forward. A week after the Taylor Swift incident I get an email apologizing that we didn’t get to see Taylor perform and they were inviting us back to see her perform at the VMA's and go on the red carpet! Woohoo! I quickly signed up and signed Dana up as well and were accepted and got 4 tickets.

In the meantime I also got accepted to attend the VMA's and be inside Radio City in the "pit" but decided to decline those. Again those were not 100% guaranteed and I know from experience they turn people away as soon as they make their quota and get the spots filled. I later found out they only took 268 of 350 pit fans and that they also turned away 200 seat fillers! It is very sad this company does this but I understand why they have to overbook. I am glad we went with our 100% guaranteed Taylor Swift - sorry-we-screwed-you-over-the-first-time tickets

So now it is the day of the VMA's and we have to be in Rockefeller Center at 12/1:00. To be safe we get there at 11:00am. We arrive at the "holding cell:" an old, grimy, stripped office building. It was nasty but hey I am not going to complain because this is once in a lifetime but seriously I thought I was going to get asbestos poisoning in there. We waited there until 2:00 and then we were lined up to do Taylor Swift's dress rehearsal on 6th Avenue in front of Radio City Music Hall. We did that, saw her perform and then were free to grab dinner.

At 5:30 we lined up for the red carpet. It was a lot of standing around and total cattle call but you have to expect that. The red carpet was from 6:30-9:00 but they don't air it on TV until 8:00pm. Interesting. We got in position and the stars started showing up and it was AMAZING! We were positioned right past the spot where all photos are taken and interviews are done...there is one section specifically for fans and we were put there. All the stars stopped to sign autographs, take pictures, say hello, tell us what they were wearing - it was awesome! They were so nice! Some stars quickly walked by I think because they had to perform or present (Kayne West - eww, P Diddy, JLO, Green Day, etc) but I'd say the majority stopped to say hi and pose for pics. We met the cast of the Hills, the City, Real World, plus Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and the list goes on! See all my photos below! Also between the 4 of us that attended we had 3 cameras...all 3 cameras died at some point! UGH! Also I was not allowed to bring my Canon so we dealt with what we had and did the best we could - some are blurry but oh well!

After the red carpet we got into position for the Taylor Swift performance. We had to run out in the street and watch her perform on top of a cab. This was cool but it was a mob scene and girls were fighting to get a close spot. My sister got pushed down, scraper her knee, lost her shoe, but still managed to get front and center! Go Dana!

I am almost done here...hang with me...after the Taylor performance a security guard helped Dana find her shoe and we were moved with our group to another location to watch Jay Z arrive. We were tired at this point but stuck it out but afterwards we were all done and set free. Angela and I considered hanging around but we were just so tired and called it a night at 11:00pm. I caught a ferry home and finally got to see my hubby - I barely saw him all weekend :( We watched a few clips from the VMA's and saw me in the crowd a few times and then hit the sheets! What a weekend, it was great and I had such an awesome experience! I hope I get this lucky next time around!

Here are some of the pics but if you want to see more please visit my facebook page.

Us in the holding cell: