How does the American Idol casting process actually work?

I agree with Dena. I was a Production Assistant for the 2011 Pittsburgh audtions. We separated the opening night crowd into a bunch of taped off sections and let them register one group at a time. This goes on at night for hours. I worked the night shift. (~16 hour shifts). While they are in the taped off sections, camera crews go around getting shots of the crowd chanting or screaming whatever they are told to yell. During the 2nd day and 2nd night, you get a lot of people coming in to register, but there is not a long line at all, it's much easier. During registration there is a lot of rule explanations about who is allowed to come with you and certain ages and things like that. A lot of people wanted to bring friends, so they had to go to a notary to get authorized for the parents of the auditioner to be their legal guardian for a day. It was on the third night and at the end of my shift (4th morning) that they were finally allowed into heinz field. They were seated in one section and when they were called, they walked across the field to a canopy tent where they had around 10 seconds to sing for the producers. They were told to go left or right, left being a no and right being a yes. A couple days later they came back for executive producers. A couple weeks later they came back for the judges. I was called to work for the judges auditions, but by then I was back in college and could not go.