American Idol Atlanta Auditions Finish and End with Very Little Fanfair

The final rounds of the Season 7 American Idol auditions have come and gone in their last stop, Atlanta, Ga.

ETA: Check out the video in comments from FOX News. thanks milajoy…

Per Atlanta-based American Idol blogger Rodney Ho, on October 8th:

The “Idol” folks have returned to town to cull the 300 to 500 people they found at the Georgia Dome in August to 75 to 150 for Paula, Simon and Randy to sift through later this week.

The executive producers, including Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick, are cutting the numbers down as I write this. (I’m in South Carolina at a beach house so I’m sorry if my entries the next couple of days will be a bit thin.). They are currently at the Georgia International Convention Center on Camp Creek Parkway near the airport. They are not letting the media (or random fans) in. In 2002, I was able to actually view a few auditions at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center and interview Simon. In 2003, at AmericasMart, I was able to hang out outside the audition doors, talk to Paula and get a shot of myself in the audition spot. Not this time. I’ll try to check things out later this week but based on media accounts in other cities (we’re apparently the last one), I probably won’t have much luck with access. I suspect they’ve had some psychos/stalkers and the like pop up in recent years so they’ve tightened up the security.

Hmmm…..Supra-Sekrit! While Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul held press conferences in Philadelphia and San Diego, they stopped talking to the press after that. Wonder what’s up?

Rodney, unfortunately, never made it to the auditions:

I got back from out of town yesterday and decided to wait until today to check out the “Idol” auditions but dang it, they finished a day early! Employees here at the Georgia International Convention Center off Camp Creek Parkway said they worked late into the night so they could cut out ahead of time. As I walk around at noon Thursday, there is no evidence they were even here. Bummer. I briefly pondered showing up last night and I should have.

From past behavior, I figured they would set aside two days for the executive producers to pare down the 300 to 500 people down to 75 to 150 for Randy, Paula and Simon. There are two possible reasons why they cut it a day: to accommodate the judges’ schedule or there weren’t as many finalists for them to see so they were able to get them all done in one day.

That concludes the preliminary auditions for American Idol Season 7. Next up…The Hollywood Rounds. Sometime, somewhere in Los Angeles, CA…

Anybody know where or when? Let me know at mjsbigblog@gmail.com…

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