#Health-care workers can get tickets to ‘SNL’ season premiere

“Saturday Night Live” has an interesting “thank you” offer for brave health-care workers: Free tickets to this week’s Season 46 in-studio premiere.

Unsurprisingly, tickets earmarked for front-line medical personnel are still available for both Saturday’s afternoon dress rehearsal and late-night live show, which will feature former cast member Chris Rock and musical guest Megan Thee Stallion. Tickets for the public, however, have already been scooped up.

It’s the first in-person program at 30 Rockefeller Center since the sketch comedy series shut down Studio 8H due to the coronavirus pandemic last spring.

According to COVID-19 stipulations laid out on ticketing site 1iota, attendees can request two, seven, eight or nine tickets for people within their personal “social bubble.” That’s defined as “a group of people, related or unrelated, who have repeatedly entered into close contact (defined as less than 6 feet) with all others in that group, on multiple occasions prior to the night of the show.”

The following guidelines and precautions also will need to be followed:

• All people in a “bubble” for whom tickets have been requested must come to the show, or no one in that group will be seated.
• Audience members must take a self-administered lower nasal antigen test upon arrival, with results given before the show.
• Temperature checks will be required at check-in.
• Face coverings/masks will be required inside the building; no bandanas, gaiters or masks with vents will be allowed.
• Anyone with a temperature of 100.4 or higher will not be admitted and their party also may not be allowed in.

In addition, all audience members will be asked:

• Are you exhibiting any symptoms related to COVID-19?
• Have you exhibited any symptoms to COVID-19 in the past 14 days?
• Have you had a positive COVID-19 test within the past 14 days?
• Have you been in close contact with anyone with COVID-19 symptoms, or anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19, within the past 14 days?
• Have you traveled to any of the following states in the past 14 days? Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin or Wyoming. (The list is based on NY state’s quarantine advisory.)

Saturday’s show will be Rock’s third time hosting the sketch program. It also will mark comedian Jim Carrey’s debut as Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, just four days after Biden and Donald Trump face off in Tuesday’s first prime-time 2020 presidential debate.

Since the coronavirus lockdown put an end to studio shows last season, the cast has put together three remote episodes with guest stars including Brad Pitt and Tom Hanks.