What if I just want tickets?

I just realized, not that this would be on anybody's radar, that for the last few seasons of QuizBusters, WE had a cold open! We would play our first set of ten questions with me standing in the audience section, then I'd throw to a recorded open before taking my usual place.  In a cursory check, I couldn't find an example of it on YouTube.  Most of the episodes that have been posted go back a lot further than that.

For the time being you can find the last few seasons at:

https://www.pbs.org/show/quizbusters/?page=2

(now bookmarked for a rewatch this weekend)

Completely forgot that the Soda Jerk stunt their version of The Shower game, more or less, until it was mentioned.

While this doesn't happen in any of the audio-only episodes that have surfaced thus far, I've read before that some later episodes of the original Sale of the Century opened with Bill Wendell offering an Instant Bargain before the contestants/Joe were introduced.

The first game show I can remember to have a cold open was "Let's Play Post Office." A few weeks into the series the niceties were dispensed and the show would open with the game board on camera as Don Morrow, the host, would declare, "Let's Play Post Office!" The postmark (which revealed the location of the subject of the puzzle) and opening value would be revealed. The solution was revealed to the home audience and gameplay would commence.

FTR, I consider LPPO an undiscovered gem.