Shelly’s Report of the “Hell-o” Screening at The Grove

Shelly recently went to a screening at The Grove in LA for the upcoming episode, “Hell-o”, and most of the cast was there to present! The screening turned into a fun event full of giveaways and even a fountain show! Read Shelly’s full report, complete with pictures and videos of the cast and more! Click on any of the photos below to see a slideshow of all of her pictures from the day. Enjoy! :)

I would just like to start off by saying that even though I’m a “representative” for GleeFan/Forum, what I really love about all of these events is the actual fan experience itself. Everything from waiting in line for hours surrounded by fellow Gleeks, to the actual event. When I tweet, take pictures, and do write-ups, THAT’S what I want to share with you all (as cheesy as it sounds). Now, with that said…

I arrived at The Grove at around 4 pm and met up with fellow GleeNetwork-er GleekLaurie! There was already a decently sized line for the screening, but we got there early enough to still be able to get pretty good spots. Throughout our two-hour wait, “Cheerios” came by and handed out free posters, hats, and water bottles to the line. We were let into the park at around 6:15, and the Cheerios came back to hand out popcorn in Glee bags, like the ones they had at all the other LA screenings.

The event began with a demonstration of the new Glee application on an iPad. It’s basically a singing app, where you can listen to the music, read the lyrics off the screen, have yourself be recorded, and share that mp3 with others. They also mentioned something about an auto-tune function. I’m not sure what that entails, but hopefully we’ll find out soon. The app should be available via iTunes for everyone with an iPhone, iPod touch, and/or iPad within the next week or so. After the demo, they had singing/dancing contest for a Glee prize pack, which included a Sue Sylvester track jacket, Glee t-shirt, DVD, and CD. Cool! There was a slight intermission (with entertainment provided by the Cheerios), some more giveaways (they threw t-shirts and glowsticks out to the crowd), and then they came back with another singing/dancing competition -- this time for a pair of Glee tickets for the sold out Glee Tour.

After the second competition, they premiered the Glee “fountain show.” I unfortunately wasn’t able to see much at the time from where I was standing, but it was basically a water show set to “Don’t Stop Believin’.” After the event, I was able to go back and record part of it for you guys. It’ll be playing there for the next three months, so LA Gleeks will have plenty of time to go check it out.

After the fountain show, the host announced that many members of the Glee cast would be out soon to introduce the episode. So, there was entire park full of Gleeks… I think you can imagine how crazy and excited everyone got.

There had been no prior official announcement of any cast appearances, and even though some of the cast members had tweeted about it earlier, it was still an awesome surprise to see so many people from the show! They were all so genuinely nice and appreciative of us. As someone who has been a fan of these people even before Glee ever aired, I can tell you that they were just as humble and grateful for their fans last night as they were before the show ever got this big. And the fact that they came all the way out to greet their fans on their day off? How could we NOT love them? :) After some wonderful introductions from the cast, they finally started playing “Hell-O”!

I’ll end my report here, as the episode will be airing very soon, and some of you have already seen it. For those who haven’t, expect nothing short of amazing!

I hope you enjoy my pictures and videos from the event!

If you aren’t doing so already, be sure to follow her on Twitter (@GleekShelly) for live Tweets from the many Glee events that take place in Los Angeles!