Wired News: Apple Brand Devotion Taken To New Heights & Lengths

December 9th, 2003 at 2:00 PM - News by Vern Seward

Are you one of those Apple fans who gets excited about nearby Apple Store openings? Do you drive hours to other states to insure that you are one of the first in line when the doors of the new store opens? Do you show off your collection of Apple Store T-shirts?

If youive answered iyesi to any of these questions, then you may also consider yourself to be an Apple Store devotee, and Leander Kahney of Wired News has just the story for you to make you a bit envious of a pair of fellow devotees.

Mr. Kahneyis most recent article, Apple Store: Chain of Devotion, details the journey of a father and son whose hobby is visiting Apple Stores. Such is their interest that they flew to Japan and stood in line for 28 hours just to be the first in line for the grand opening of Japanis first Apple Store. Hereis a bit of the article:

On Thanksgiving, Gary Allen and his teenage son caught a plane to Japan from their home in Berkeley, California, to attend the grand opening of Apple Computeris new store in Tokyo.

Rising early Friday, the pair spent the next 28 hours standing outside the store in the rain to be the first in line when the doors were thrown open Saturday morning. Objective achieved, and commemorative T-shirts in hand, the pair flew home the next day.

"It was definitely the most exciting grand opening of all the stores Iive been to," said Allen, who has turned the gala openings of Apple Stores into something of a hobby.

[...]

Being the first in line at the Tokyo store was something of a coup for the pair. As an astonishing video shot by Masanori Fukumoto attests [see TMOis coverage for more information], interest in the new store was unprecedented, even for shopping-mad Tokyo-ites.

The video shows the amazing number of people who waited patiently to get inside on opening day.

The line, which Allen estimated to be 2,500 at its height, takes a full 10 minutes to traverse from beginning to end. It stretched for about 10 Tokyo city blocks, according to a map created by Allen.

You can read the full story of the this adventurous duo, which includes pictures, at Wired News.