Luke Conklin’s job is to find the best people he can for the new game show on NBC, “Minute To Win It” — and last week he found them at the flea market. The show held a casting call event at the Festival Flea Market Mall in Pompano Beach, Fla., and attracted a crowd of game show fans.
Kelly Galiszewski, Festival’s marketing director, was at the event, which was promoted on the market’s Facebook page and on YouTube. “We were happy to host it,” she says. “We’ve hosted numerous casting calls, and that was one of our most successful. It draws such a crowd.”
Conklin, who is the supervising casting producer for the show, says that 500 people came out for the casting call. “You get to see people from all walks of life, especially in a market setting such as that. We actually found some people that I’m really excited about.” Conklin hadn’t thought of using a flea market to find contestants before, but now he thinks it is a natural. “Our local affiliate gave the idea to me, and it immediately sparked my interest,” he says. “I thought it was something that hadn’t been done in the past, and I thought we could find some fun, really interesting people at a place like this.”
According to Galiszewski, a swap-meet-style venue is ideal. “We have the space, know-how, and availability to host it. We enjoyed being available to do that. Flea markets are a great fit for casting calls,” she says. “There were quite a few callbacks, I understand.”
Conklin explains how it works: “At our casting events, like the one at the flea market, it’s a chance for possible contestants to walk up to one of our casting directors and tell a little about themselves. Casting calls are the number one way to get on a game show, especially like this, where you have face-to-face interaction with the people.” There were no actual game challenges at the event, he says. The idea was to look for people, and the show found some good ones.
The casting directors are looking for people they will remember somebody at the end of the day. “It’s really for the people that have a vigor for life,” says Conklin. “My people came back very excited about the people they found. It was a very successful casting call for us.”