So Jon and I just got home from the crazy extravaganza that was the opening of the largest Apple Store in the US which happens to be right here in Boston! This flagship store is a 3 floor glass and stainless steel vision of beauty.

Thanks to my friend Kim we were able to enter the store about an hour before it opened and got a private tour. On the third floor (dedicated to the biggest Genius Bar i’ve ever seen and training area) all 175 employees were gathered as a sea of light blue, navy and orange shirts. The energy was magnetic and insane as they all pumped themselves up for the incredible event that was about to unfold.

After lots of screaming, clapping, chanting and just general whooping and hollering, all 175 of them made their way down the incredible 3 floor spiral glass staircase and then they went outside to run up and down through the insane crowd that had gathered. When I got to the store at 4, the line went almost 4 blocks and the store wasn’t opening for another 2 hours. I can’t imagine how long the line was by the time the place actually opened. I can say that at 7:30, the line was still being let into the store, so it was obviously incredibly long.

We made our way downstairs where the employees had gathered around the entire store and wrapping up all 3 flights of the glass staircase as they prepared for the first customer to enter the store. It was like being at the most energetic and exciting rally you could imagine. I’ve never seen this much hype and fan chaos for a friggin’ retail store.

At 6pm, you’d think that George Clooney had entered the store after curing AIDS and ending global warming. That first guy was a rockstar, a customer but a rockstar in that moment. He made his way through every employee and slapping their hands and giving high fives. Crazy! Then the parade began and for a good 30 minutes there was nothing but clapping and screaming as fans made their way into the store. We were all given their grand opening gifts. In this case it’s a green monster Apple Boylston shirt (kinda looks like the graphic above) and little red sox for your iPod. Cute.

It was mecca and we were all home!

Here are the pictures I took on my iPhone before the store opened, as it opened and while the folks were milling about. There’s also a picture of my friend Jake who’s a Mac Genius at the new store. I’m just a mac geek:

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Ducky Does TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.