Antiques Roadshow

To the best of my knowledge, the show advertises where it is going to be, people queue up and form long lines that day with their crap, I would imagine some low level production aides do a first run through of what people brought, they narrow it down to a group of possibles. At some point I would guess, they have the experts look at that smaller group of items that might be interesting, film the best 20-30 or so items with the experts opinions and then make the show out of the best 8-10 items. They always show the long lines of people waiting outside the venue for their turn to have their stuff evaluated.

It's done by lottery, initially.

The show is so popular now that they don't just advertise in the city where they're shooting.

You sign up for the lottery, and they tell you people will be notified by email if they have been selected for tickets (which are free). You can also check their website on a certain date to see if you've "made the cut." Then they mail your tickets before the show.

THEN ... you stand in a long queue on the day of the taping with your two (maximum, so they say) items, although I've seen people bring more than two.

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I was selected in the lottery for this current season -- filmed last summer. Up until this year, you could apply for two tickets at ALL Roadshow cities. This year, they've limited your application to only one city (of your choice). You are given a link and a code number after you register and instructed to check back to see if you were selected (around April 15th)
I was selected to attend the filming in Knoxville, TN. You print out your tickets. Each person can bring two items. There is a different procedure for furniture. You can find the instructions for that on the PBS web page for AR. You are also given an arrival time. I was fortunate to get the very first slot in Knoxville. We had to queue outside of the convention center at 7:30 a.m. for our 8:00 a.m. slot. We literally got to see/meet every appraiser as they entered the building. Once inside you queue again and go to a table where you are given a ticket that identifies the category that your item fits (ie. painting, poster, pottery, civil war, etc.) A staffer then takes you to another queue line for that specific category. After the first, you can move to the other categories on your own. My friend and I decided to go to the appraisers as a team, so we queued four times. We did not have overlapping categories, so we got to meet four appraisers. We had a blast with Leila Dunbar (sports memorabilia) and Nick Lowry (posters). I also had an appraisal from Nick Dawes (English pottery) and my friend had on from someone (Arts and Crafts) we'd never seen on the show before. Because we were in the very first group, we were done within an hour. We saw two people selected for on air appraisals. We were not selected, but came close with the sports memorabilia. I can't wait to find out what the hell was so special about the I Dream of Jeannie-ish bottle that I saw them select.
As we exited, the queue line was probably up to about 500 people for the 9:00 and 10:00 slots. They have the entire process down to a science. It moves quickly. For some unknown reason, Knoxville will not be airing until this Fall, so I don't know if I am in any shots. We were definitely filmed for the opening shot and perhaps one other. Mark Wahlberg was not there during our time frame. I believe that he was filming off-site and then showed up to film on the floor in the afternoon. They see about 3,000 at each location. I've already applied to do it again this year.

SOMMS...you've just inspired me to admit publicly that I find Nick Lowry kinda sexy in a dandified way.