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Viewers on social media began noticing something during last night’s 2024 Emmy Awards: there appeared to be open seats in the audience. This is definitely unusual, as usually, seat fillers are employed to make sure the audience looks full when stars win awards, take bathroom breaks, get up to mingle, etc. However, the producers are now explaining why this happened and why seat fillers aren’t the best option here. Keep reading to find out more… Deadline asked the show’s executive producers Jesse Collins and Dionne Harmon why it appeared the “theater looking a little sparse with the center area looking half empty.” Jesse responded, “What happens on this show is that we have large groups of people winning.” Dionne added, “30 people go to the stage!” Jesse continued, “And that tends to be in the middle of an act. So if there’s two, sometimes three awards in an act, which we had, you have two large groups of people that are no longer there and it’s really not feasible to use seat fillers. It kind of causes more disruption and chaos because now you have people doing the, ‘Excuse me, pardon me, pardon me’ while a presenter is trying to do their bit. We haven’t figured out how to crack that code because it’s just the science of the award show. I guess we could try to shoot around it given another opportunity, but it’s tough.”