#The Price is Right returns to production, without signature audience

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“#The Price is Right returns to production, without signature audience”

Today marks the return of The Price is Right to production after many months away, but it’s not going to look anywhere close to the same show.

For almost the past 50 years, one of the biggest staples of the daytime game show has been the live audience. That atmosphere is one of the reasons why this game has been so fun to watch over time! Yet, Deadline reports that this is now gone, and in its place contestants’ row has been shifted into what you can see in the photo above. You still have four contestants doing the bidding as they often do, and they are now on the same level as host Drew Carey and the stage.

Speaking to the aforementioned website, here is some of what executive producer Evelyn Warfel had to say:

“I felt like it was odd for [host] Drew [Carey] to be talking down to only four people … It made sense when it’s 300 and it’s a whole audience, but it felt weird to me for him to be talking down to four people and then having it empty behind them.”

So while the audience structure is changing, rest assured that you are also going to see roughly the same show. Contestants will be told to “come on down,” and a number of the same games that you’ve seen over the years will still be there. This is the show just trying to do what it can to adapt to a new world amidst the global health crisis. Eventually, we’re sure that The Price is Right will return with an audience, but given that it doesn’t seem like it will happen for a while, we understand adapting the show in order to better suit what the new normal is at the moment. (The Big Wheel will still be involved — but so will a good bit of sanitizer.)