Last night I went to Barnes and Noble to get my copy of the newest addition to the Harry Potter series. It was a lot of fun.
I reached the store at about 10:45. There was no parking nearby so I had to park a few stores down. Entering the building, I was greeted by a B&N employee who asked if I had preordered and since I hadn't directed me to a table where I could get a ticket in order to get in line for a copy. As I made my way towards where he had pointed I was amazed by the number of people and the Potter fever that was everywhere. People with lightning bolt scars, people with wands, people dressed up like Myrtle, people dressed like the knight in the painting, people with capes and hats and Griffindor t-shirts and scarves and more. What had done this? A book! And not just any book, an 890 page monster. Incredible.
I had a great time waiting for the books to go on sale watching the excited kids and adults as they passed the time. When the book finally went on sale, groups of ticket holders were called up front thirty at a time. It was handled very well avoiding a lot of the nastiness usually involved in some long awaited consumer product. The lines moved quickly and orderly, the doors weren't blocked, and people managed to keep a smile on their face all the way to and out of the door. It was great.
I'm really excited to have the book and to start reading it. I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, do you have your copy?
I'm glad you managed to get a copy Mike, although looking around now it seems like we were all over-reacting a little in thinking we had to be there rigth away to get it. I saw piles of them at Wal*Mart, Stop&Shop, and more. It seems like they're everywhere. I read in the paper today that they sold 700,000 in the first day, with Amazon shipping one million more. Insane.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy yours as well and I'm glad you made out ok. In a week or two we'll have to talk about what we thought.
My husband was convinced if we did not go out on Friday night, we would not get a copy. So out we went.....it was fun watching all the kids, but Borders in Braintree didn't handle the lines quite as efficiently as B&N. I waited in line to get a coupon, and then at 12:01 they announced that you could pick up the books at the information desk at the back of the store - so the mobs flooded the back of the store, and then raced to the front of the store to pay. I am still unclear why I needed a coupon, but I stood in line for about 2 hours that night.
On a positive note, thanks to the wretched weather on Sunday, I managed to finish the book last night.
I was the third person in line at the Prudential B&N, just behind the grandmother who had her picture landed on boston.com's Globe front page. It was fun to wait around in B&N waiting for the book. They handed out numbers starting at 9pm and my girlfriend and I went to Copley to see Bend It Like Beckham in the interim. Not a bad way to wait.
And the updates are in(http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/06/23/harry.potter.ap/index.html). It seems the book sold approximately five million copies in the first few days. That's insane!