Snap just went public - here's a behind-the-scenes look at what a typical IPO is like

There are few things more anticipated in the stock market than an initial public offering, or IPO.

Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, is debuting as a public company on Thursday in the biggest tech IPO in years.

There are a few exchanges in the US on which stocks are traded, and thus on which IPOs can take place.

The New York Stock Exchange is the largest and oldest of these exchanges, starting in 1792, and it sits in its iconic home on Wall Street.

In 2016, Business Insider got a backstage look at one of the IPO days through the eyes of Carolyn Saacke, the chief operating officer for NYSE's capital markets business. The capital markets business oversees all IPOs and maintains relationships with the firms that are already listed on the NYSE.

To give you a sense of what's happening on the floor, here's a behind-the-scenes look at the wild day of an IPO: