Lineup just before the doors opened.

Waiting In Line

Having never been to an Apple Store grand opening before, besides the free T-shirts, Pris and I were clueless as to what to expect. The first thing we wondered was “what time should we show up”. Mapleview Centre opens at 9:30am on Saturdays, so we decided to show up at 8:30am. There were roughly 75 people in line and we were still fairly close to the front of the line.

This guy showed up around 5am and was first in line.

To back track a little, all I got was a simple email from Apple on Tuesday at 1pm stating the opening of the store and that they would be giving away T-shirts to the first 1,000 customers.

Back to waiting in line, Pris and I had a conversation that went something like this:

Pris: “I don’t get what’s so exciting about this. Are there any sales or  deep discounts?”

Me: “Nope! They give us a free T-shirt and we’re here for the experience of it all.”

Pris: “This is LAME! Will people line up like this outside of Victoria Secret when they’re ready to launch?”

Me: “Only if they’re giving away free bras”

And that’s when this happened….

The Grand Opening

I could’ve simply described how it felt to see the actual grand opening at 9:30am – and they were right on time – but I know that these videos will be worth a million words.

Here’s my turn to walk through the line:

What the Church Can Learn

After an experience that has been unique in every sense, I couldn’t help but tie it to the church and what she can learn from the grand opening of an Apple Store.

Here are my takeaways:

• Serve good coffee – they didn’t, but thankfully Starbucks was open #FTW
• When you establish something meaningful and practical, people will get on board very quickly,  in this case, even the first time it’s announced
• People are willing to show up (really) early when they believe in a product, brand, or community (or want a free t-shirt of the brand they believe in)
• Employees/volunteers are excited because they believe in what they’re doing.
• Employees/volunteers will want to get involved and be there because they are a valuable part of the team.
• Although not everyone gets “it”, the atmosphere can quickly influence the outsider and make them a believer
• Don’t let the atmosphere/environment dictate your enthusiasm, instead let your enthusiasm dictate the atmosphere/environment
• Noise/excitement will attract a crowd – passer-byers will stop and wonder what’s going on
• Doing something totally cool and unexpected will jolt the momentum in your favour and make it memorable.
• When you make something memorable people will talk about it and spread the word.