2023 Academy Awards: Can regular people attend the Oscars?

The 95th Academy Awards will take place Sunday 12 March, broadcast live from the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. If you have it on your bucket list to attend the show in person, while it’s an extreme longshot, there are ways that even plebes can get into the event and sit with the stars, possibly.

However, there are other ways to have a better chance of getting up close, relatively, to the celebrities at the Oscars. One is free through a lottery each year to get a seat in the bleachers along the red carpet. The other attending an After Party event, but only if you have several thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket.

How a regular person can attend the Academy Awards

Generally, if you are sitting in the Dolby Theater for the live show of the Oscars, it means that you are a celebrity, in the movie business or really well connected. That’s because half of the 3,400 seats at the venue are reserved for the presenters, nominees and their guests as well as Hollywood studio executives. The remaining seats are handed out in a lottery to the over 10,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. So, if you by chance know somebody, who knows somebody, you just might be able to get a ticket from one of the lucky members that got a ticket from the lottery. But don’t expect a free lunch and have a few thousand dollars to spare for additional expenses.

The other scenario is if you sign up to be a seat-filler for the ceremony. When the cameras pan across the auditorium, there can’t be any holes, and seats open up when one of the nominees, or the whole cast of a movie go up on stage to accept one of the golden statuettes. That’s where you would by a stroke of luck get a chance to sit down next to a famous star.

Inverse shares the story of Brittany Hilgers who got to sit in the front row next to Penelope Cruz at the 2007 Academy Awards. However, it’s the luck of the draw, even if you get chosen to be a seat-filler, you may spend the whole night on standby. And there is no guarantee that you will get to sit next to a celebrity. But you do get to walk the red carpet and treated to some fancy food beforehand.

How regular people can get up close to celebrities at the Oscars

There are two other ways that you can get a near Oscar attendance experience. One, winning a seat to view the celebrities walk the red carpet (or one of the seat-fillers) and the other buying your way into an After Party.

Every year the Academy holds a lottery for the Red Carpet Fan Experience where around 700 people from the public who sign up are chosen. If you are lucky, you might get a seat in the front row in the bleachers lining the red carpet and even shake the hand of one of your idols. Otherwise you might want to bring a pair of looking glasses.

Now, if you have several thousand dollars just lying around you could buy a ticket into an after party. For the 2023 Oscars, as of publication, there were still a couple of spots left for the Elton John Foundation Oscar Celebrity After Party at VIP Concierge. However, they will set you back $4,665 a piece.