Late nights and long lines are standard at television tapings. Countless people flock to late-night tapings daily across New York City, and NYU students are no exception. Many get their tickets ahead of time, while some wait it out until the day before. Nevertheless, the reward is the greatest of them all: sitting in the audience of your favorite late-night show. Here are some tips and stories from NYU students.

CAS sophomore Juhi Dalal went to see “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” in early 2016.

“They tell you to get there about an hour ahead of time. You usually can get closer seats if you do,” Dalal said. “Right now I’m trying to go the [Saturday Night Live] but I’m always in class when they release the tickets, but I will keep trying.”

Some students, such as Stern-Tisch senior Shobhit Jain, have worked behind the scenes of these tapings. Jain has worked at “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”

“[Interns] had a day every other week where we saw the production of the show from day to afternoon when cameras started rolling,” Jain said. “I would stand in the control room with a head seat on just watching the taping.”

Last semester CAS freshmen Nick Sawhney and Tisch freshman Will Richerson went to see “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“We got tickets for Stephen Colbert about three days beforehand,” Sawhney said. “For Trevor Noah, Blood Orange performed, which was pretty cool.”

The two friends are fans of both Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert and have been watching them for quite some time.

“I definitely recommend going to see a late-night show if you can get the tickets,” Richerson said. “But you just have to time it right.”

Steinhardt freshman Rachael Heitstuman-DePasqual has been watching “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” for years with her grandma.

“We would always watch it together and I knew when I got to NYU that I just had to get tickets,” Heistuman-DePasqual said.

After telling all her family and friends back at home, Heistuman-DePasqual went to the show alone and was ready to see Jimmy Fallon.

“I had gotten the tickets over winter break so I just got a single since I didn’t know if anyone else wanted to go,” Heistuman-DePasqual said. “All my family and friends recorded the show. My grandma called me and said she kept pausing and rewinding every time she saw me.”

Tisch freshman and Stephen Colbert mega-fan Erin Dugan saw her favorite late-night host on the memorable night of the second presidential debate memorable. The audience watched the debate before Stephen Colbert came out for the show.

“You knew while the debate was happening that the writers were frantically backstage writing the jokes for [Colbert’s] monologue,” Dugan said.

Having prepared beforehand for a Q&A session with Colbert, Dugan’s favorite part of the night was talking to her idol.

“I shot my hand up in the air, and he referred to me as the eager one in the white sweater,” Dugan said. “I started asking my question, but then I realized I was talking to Stephen Colbert. I panicked and soon we were going back and forth just saying hi. It was the best night of my entire life.”

Email Pamela Jew at [email protected].