You might remember a prior posting, relating my excitement to see an Apple Store being build in downtown Los Gatos. Until last night, I’ve never actually attended an Apple Store opening, but when Brian contacted me and made me aware of it’s opening on Thursday night, well, I had to go. Los Gatos has been home to me for longer then any other town I’ve lived in my entire life. Childhood included. I’ve had a 95030 or 95032 zip code for most of my adult life, a portion of which was spend living literally one block off the main drag [Santa Cruz Ave] of the downtown area. So the combination of Apple and Los Gatos made attending it essential.
It’s positioned next to the Great Bear and Andales, two favorite haunts. It opened at 6PM and there was a line of people stretching down the entire street block and well around the corner. I got some dinner at Andales and allowed the initial line to shorten, but it was still around the corner when I finally decided to join the queue.
Fortunately, not too long after standing in line, I spotted a co-worker who was actually involved with and working the store opening. They pulled a few strings and got me in quickly. Once in, it was a festive party with wall to wall people all checking out the new iPods, the iPhone, iMacs and so much more. Everybody I talked to working the event, including some who were store employees for this new location, was pleasant and excited. As were all the attendees.
It strikes me as a great symbol of the appeal that Apple and our products have to customers when you have this kind of reaction, country wide at all store openings. When else do you see things like this as ‘events’ that draw lines of crowds? Microsoft? Uh-uh. Gateway? Come on. But Apple draws a crowd of enthusiasm. It’s quite thrilling.
Here’s a photo I snapped of Brian and Patricia helping out some kids playing in the kids area of the store.
