I went to my first episode shooting today. I don't want to spoil too much unless people want me to, but anyway they were shooting 3 episodes today which took about 4 hours all in all. I learned today that the studio has a capacity of 100 viewers.
The most interesting thing with being one of the guys in the audience is actually seeing what's happening backstage and off camera. From where I was sitting I had great view of one of the monitors and I noticed they recorded the episodes in the opposite order, as in #460 -> #459 etc. I have no idea if that's what they usually do. During the first shooting when Masuno stepped in he went directly for the audience and asked for advice about the newest Dragon Quest.
ADs messing up here and there was fun, as well.
What surprised me most today is the amount stuff that doesn't make it to the actual aired episodes, to name a few Ookawa coughing up aonori after drinking a chunk of it, and after receiving a bottle of water she fails to open it herself and instead gets help from one of the ADs.
The bottle of water didn't help much though so she had to run to the toilet afterwards. Then of course we have all of the secret interactions the members are having that the camera aren't picking up.
Hopefully I'll be able to make it to more of these shootings.