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orangerfulTuesday, May 11th 1999. My mom gave me permission to skip school. We piled into our respective cars (I don't remember if she drove us or if we all got rides together, but I feel like I bummed a ride, as usual).
Looking at the pictures, it appears that we arrived at The Senator around late afternoon. I know it was during the school day because I had friends that came much later whose parents were not as cool as mine, so they relied on us to save them a spot.
The line was already around the corner and down the street a little bit. We set up camp on someone's front yard. We had sleeping bags and lawn chairs, and a few blankets. I also came equipped with my Star Wars Trivial Pursuit game. In fact, when the news cameras finally came around that night, a clip of us playing the game was on screen for about 3 seconds.
One of the local pizza places walked up and down the line with menus and took our food orders, which was cool. A gas station was located across the street so we were able to walk over to use the bathrooms and get sodas. (sodas with Phantom Menace characters plastered all over them so I had to save the cans/wrappers for my collection). I think the bagel place down the street also came up to give us their menu for tomorrow's breakfast, saying they would have a special for us if we told them we were in line.
I remember that the guy next to us in line had a HUGE Star Wars tattoo, and he was very proud of the newest edition - Darth Maul. We had all seen the mysterious character on the cover of Star Wars Insider (which, up until a few months before) had been the Lucasfilm Fan Club.
At some point in the night I remember the staff from The Senator coming down the line and counting us off so they could have enough tickets ready. They might have taken our names, but I think they just wanted to make sure that people weren't standing in line that would not get tickets to the midnight show. We were 180th in line.
We did go down and get bagels in the morning. We all felt pretty gross, I remember it was a really warm spring day, so our lack of showers was sorta icky. We might have brushed our teeth at the gas station, just to get some sort of freshness.
But we made it, we got our tickets! And in 7 days, we would see the movie on the big screen. It would be my first and last real camp out for tickets. When Episode II went on sale, I was at Celebration II in Indianapolis and had to send Paul to get tickets for me. And when RotS tickets went on sale, the theater owner was kind enough to let us inside. And now The Senator is closing its doors. And all the other theaters have gone online, so you can just order your tickets in advance. So I'm really happy to have had this experience and I cherish the memories (or what I can remember) of this crazy night 10 years ago.
click on the image to see the rest of the photos from that night!
Looking at the pictures, it appears that we arrived at The Senator around late afternoon. I know it was during the school day because I had friends that came much later whose parents were not as cool as mine, so they relied on us to save them a spot.
The line was already around the corner and down the street a little bit. We set up camp on someone's front yard. We had sleeping bags and lawn chairs, and a few blankets. I also came equipped with my Star Wars Trivial Pursuit game. In fact, when the news cameras finally came around that night, a clip of us playing the game was on screen for about 3 seconds.
One of the local pizza places walked up and down the line with menus and took our food orders, which was cool. A gas station was located across the street so we were able to walk over to use the bathrooms and get sodas. (sodas with Phantom Menace characters plastered all over them so I had to save the cans/wrappers for my collection). I think the bagel place down the street also came up to give us their menu for tomorrow's breakfast, saying they would have a special for us if we told them we were in line.
I remember that the guy next to us in line had a HUGE Star Wars tattoo, and he was very proud of the newest edition - Darth Maul. We had all seen the mysterious character on the cover of Star Wars Insider (which, up until a few months before) had been the Lucasfilm Fan Club.
At some point in the night I remember the staff from The Senator coming down the line and counting us off so they could have enough tickets ready. They might have taken our names, but I think they just wanted to make sure that people weren't standing in line that would not get tickets to the midnight show. We were 180th in line.
We did go down and get bagels in the morning. We all felt pretty gross, I remember it was a really warm spring day, so our lack of showers was sorta icky. We might have brushed our teeth at the gas station, just to get some sort of freshness.
But we made it, we got our tickets! And in 7 days, we would see the movie on the big screen. It would be my first and last real camp out for tickets. When Episode II went on sale, I was at Celebration II in Indianapolis and had to send Paul to get tickets for me. And when RotS tickets went on sale, the theater owner was kind enough to let us inside. And now The Senator is closing its doors. And all the other theaters have gone online, so you can just order your tickets in advance. So I'm really happy to have had this experience and I cherish the memories (or what I can remember) of this crazy night 10 years ago.
click on the image to see the rest of the photos from that night!