As Saturday Night Live’s beloved Stefon would say… This place has everything: stage managers doting on you like an A-list celebrity, cue cards that need to be run over to the Weekend Update set last minute, and Polaroid cameras snapping ridiculous stills of the throwback Wayne’s World sketch.

For four days starting January 30, a corner of Rockefeller Center has been transformed into “Live from New York: The SNL50 Experience,” transporting fans through five decades of the legendary comedy show as it gears up for its most epic weekend yet. SNL50: The Homecoming Concert will stream live on Peacock on Friday, February 14, leading up to SNL50: The Anniversary Special airing on NBC and Peacock on Sunday, February 16.

This is no cookie-cutter ode to a pop culture phenomenon; the 25-minute experience literally thrusts you into the dizzyingly hectic backstage world. Every visitor is treated like this week’s most anticipated celebrity guest host in what’s perhaps the most realistic immersive theater production to ever hit New York City.

Stepping through the doors of 10 West 51st Street entrance of 45 Rockefeller Plaza, under a pop-up Art Deco-style marquee reminiscent of the neon signage across the way at 30 Rock, I instantly felt I was inside the studio of the 101-time Emmy-winning show. Framed stills from buzzy sketches lined the hallway peppered with dressing room doors of current cast members — from comedy juggernauts Kenan Thompson and Bowen Yang to rising icons Marcello Hernández, Ego Nwodim, and Heidi Gardner.

Grouped up with five other “hosts,” I was assigned a stage manager, Alex, who guided me through the chaotic maze of crew members to the wooden double doors labeled Studio 8H as the countdown to showtime began. While I tried to take in every piece of the run-of-shows and stage directions posted on the walls, she reminded me, “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready,” as joined her in completing creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels’ famous quote: “It goes on because it’s 11:30.”

First, it was time to pick a prop for my host portrait in the style made famous by Mary Ellen Matthews. While the red rotary phone and NYC taxi snowglobe called to me, I knew I had to grab the cowbell from the Christopher Walken 2000 sketch “More Cowbell,” so historic there’s a new 49-minute documentary on Peacock’s Beyond Saturday Night on the 5:42-minute segment.

As the photographer instructed me how to pose, then I was quickly led to a ramp behind the stage door. Then in a moment that I thought was reserved for improbable dreams, I heard my name announced as this week’s host and burst through the doors to my centerstage mark for my hosting debut.

With no time to revel in the excitement, it was off to practice reading lines off the cue cards in the all-caps system so meticulously handwritten by Cue Cards by Wally’s Wally Feresten. Assigned the task of delivering a crucial card to the next set, I was put into a quick-change area and heard the Weekend Update intro playing.

The blackout curtains lifted, and I found myself pulled onto the world’s most famous fake news set. Apparently, because of my very "punchable face", I was invited to take Colin Jost’s chair, while grabbing a stiff drink, surely left behind by Michael Che. After stumbling over my Update cue card lines, it was off again through a corridor filled with recognizable props from SNL history, including Dan Akroyd’s 1976 Super Bass-O-Matic blender, Kevin Nealon’s 1990 Chia Head, and my personal favorite, Please Don’t Destroy’s 2021 Hard Seltzer — since I’ve always wanted to try a sip of Martin Herlily’s dentist’s fizzy drink.

After all those thrills, it was time for some touch-ups, as my stage manager put me in front of the lightbulb-framed mirror of the hair-and-makeup area, flanked by wigs worn by Tom Hanks’ David S. Pumpkins, Will Ferrell’s Spartan Cheerleader, and Hernández’s Domingo. She pulled out a screen and prepped me for my next live sketch, Wayne’s World with Aerosmith, deciding to cast me as Wayne himself. With a guitar in hand in the basement set of the 1989 sketch, cameras here were swapped for Polaroids, as my castmates and I sang the theme song and left with retro souvenirs of our performance.

There was only one place left to go as the final door opened and the forest green walls of the prestigious Five-Timers Club, with waiters in cropped maroon jackets, came into view. While I was only allowed to touch, not wear, the jacket earned by the likes of Tina Fey, John Mulaney, Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Wiig, Emma Stone, and Paul Rudd, I was served up a cocktail to toast the end of the adventure through 50 years of sketch comedy history.

Exiting into The Shop at NBC Studios’ mini store — where every host got a thank you tote bag with SNL50 souvenirs — I heard a dutiful NBC page call out to me as I left: “Thanks for hosting this week!”

As an entertainment magazine editor-turned-travel journalist obsessed with immersive experiences around the globe, I found the scale of “Live from New York: The SNL50 Experience” — with dozens of fake crew members milling about at all times and the intricacies of every photo and prop on display — gave it a thrilling sense of the storied chaos that the show has been born out of every week.

And as a casual SNL fan who once intended to camp overnight for standby line tickets (for the Mulaney five-timer episode, of course), which ended up leading me on a path to become the most amateur panelist on a Saturday Night Network podcast, this was a fever dream-come-true — with every stroke of the cue card marker and splinter of the sets oozing with respect the show deserves for its landmark year.

While the best part of this Rockefeller Center exclusive experience is that it’s free, the experience — produced by NBC in collaboration with NVE Experience Agency and running from 1 to 9 pm daily through Sunday, February 2 — is currently sold out. Though entrance is not guaranteed, a first-come first-serve digital standby line is offered on-site.

But even without the experience, it’s well worth a visit to Rockefeller Center in the weeks leading up to SNL50. Black and gold flags have taken over the circumference of The Rink, and SNL-themed menu items are being offered at many eateries. Sip on The Booze Brothers at 5 Acres or the Van Down by the River drink at Pebble Bar. Try the Lisa from Temecula’s Shake the Table Bowl from Inday, the Diner Lobster at Luke’s Lobster Bar, or the Superstar Latte at Café Grumpy.

With the show so inherently tied to its Manhattan studio, there’s no better spot to celebrate than “Live from Rockefeller Center.”

Photos courtesy of NVE Experience Agency