TAMPA — Drummer Mike "Pro" Greaves got all the way here from Fort Lauderdale when he realized he'd forgotten a basic necessity for his audition: a stool.

So he stood in the parking lot at Tampa Convention Center Monday morning and rearranged his kit on pieces of plywood, then sat down on his bass drum.

"I'm going to play it inverted," Greaves, 35 said. "I've never done it that way before, but I'm making it work."

The audition must roll on.

His band, Nue Road, which planned to play Prince's I Would Die 4 You, was among the hundreds of people in line waiting to try out for the upcoming season of NBC's reality competition show America's Got Talent.

Inside were more long lines, to register, to get a free cup of coffee and to go into the actual performance room. Hopefuls had 90 seconds to convince a producer they should be flown out to perform for a panel of celebrity judges including Simon Cowell. The show, which last season also featured Howie Mandel, Mel B and Heidi Klum, returns to NBC this summer for a 14th season. It was the career launchpad for singer Jackie Evancho, magician Mat Franco and ventriloquists Terry Fator and Darci Lynne Farmer and more.

Producers said they were on track to see between 2,000 and 4,000 individual auditions in Tampa.

"Every single person who gets here before 7 tonight will be seen," said Adam Davis, supervising digital producer.

Performers waited together in a room filled with vanity mirrors, the kind you picture backstage at a Broadway show. They carried guitars, boom boxes and giant Mr. Potato Head dolls. They wore numbers taped to their shirts, sequined shoes and tin foil satellite dishes on their head.

They lined up to perform on a stage that had nothing to do with the audition process, but was "just for fun," because if you give this crowd an open stage, they're going to use it.

That included 78-year-old Irina Krayterman from Hallandale Beach, a retired physician whose talent was whistling the theme to The Godfather loud enough to rise above the cacophony.

"It's kind of a circus atmosphere," said executive producer Jason Raff, over the sound of a dance troupe from Tampa's Srishti Dance Academy walking by in flowing gold costumes with dozens of jangling ankle bells.

Because this is Tampa, there were multiple pirates. The Crew of the Black Raven, which sang a sea shanty, hailed from St. Augustine.

In the hallway, a hypnotist practiced on a drag queen while a mom gave her 10-year-old singer son a cup of warm water with honey.

Stand-up comedian Justin Brown, 33, whose day job is operating Texas-style barbecue restaurants in Pennsylvania, traveled to Tampa so he could audition at the same time as his mother. Dawn Coates, 56, sang Jealous of the Angels because god had "given her a sign" when the video appeared on YouTube.

Brown, in alligator boots and a Crocodile Dundee-style hat, paced on the sidewalk after his audition.

"I can't get the adrenaline to stop," he said. "I made it, I know I made it."

He'll find out if he gets a call from producers in January.

Contact Christopher Spata at cspata@tampabay.com. Follow @spatatimes.