I read somewhere that everything takes place in a TV set that was built to resemble the real store. I am not sure if my information is correct but it does seem to make sense to do it in an environment where they have total control of the lighting, sound and the people entering.
I want to win the Nobel Peace Prize so bad that I would kill to get it
I saw something similar. Apparently because of the laws in Nevada associating with Pawn Shops, prevents filming inside an actual pawn shop. So History had a replica set built to get around the law.
shareI don't know of any Nevada law that prohibits filming inside a pawn shop. There has always been the "unwritten rule" (again no Nevada law that I can find that expressly prohibits filming a pawn transaction) that historically all pawn shops have protected the identity of customers who are pawning an item. Back in the day, members of high society who needed to pawn an item would be discreetly taken to a back room to conduct business so they could avoid embarrassment and gossip.
There are Nevada laws protecting the personal identifiers of any person pawning an item just like many businesses across the U.S. are obligated by law to protect their customers' personal identifiers. That information can ONLY be released in the daily report pawn shops send to law enforcement agencies.
That precedent apparently is still followed to this day in that pawn shops with TV shows want to avoid inadvertently filming a pawn customer and thus protect their identities and dignity. You can bet all transactions are on CCTV though.
Pawn Stars clearly filmed in the real pawn shop for the first few "seasons" at least. Watch early episodes, as the customer walks towards the exit you can see vehicles driving by and people walking on the sidewalk through the glass of the door. You can see that the real "exit" now has a frosted panel on it too. Look at Google maps and on the street views (by year) the frosted panel appears on the door sometime between June 2013 and March 2014. Prior to June 2013, the glass is clear. You can tell when they started using the replica TV set because in later episodes, the "exit" door on the TV set was frosted and no movement or shadows can be detected on the other side of the door.
I think the building of the replica TV was purely for financial reasons. Every time they filmed, the shop had to be emptied. Dick #2 was losing money from pawn shop customers AND tourists. No pawns were being transacted and no t-shirts were being sold for hours at a time. They remodeled the drive up pawn window at the back of the shop, built a replica TV set, and had the "real" pawn shop for the tourists - "win-win" for everyone.
Greg Reece spilled the beans to a friend about the replica TV set after he appeared on an episode where he tried to sell two comic books, Avengers Number 1 and Giant-Size X-Men Number 1. There was no sale and he immediately put the comics on eBay.
http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=8596431
.... There is a replica of the "real" pawn shop (same building, in the back) and that is where the filming is done. The extras you see are folks who were just ambling around the real shop and got asked if they wanted to be extras on the set. ….
That's makes a lot of sense now. The tourists go milling around the actual store buying tee shirts and crap. Meanwhile any filming they do is on the set away from everything.
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