Well it opened today.

I strolled down at half 5 and took about 15 minutes waiting to get in . I got a shirt. (it's f***ing incredible hulk size btw) The guys at the front, who'd been waiting 2 days, they got a shirt.

It is a well lit and no-expense spared store. But that is it! I was totally buying this 'architectural marvel' I was reading about, and inside it's three levels with some perspex stairs connecting them. These apple dudes were clapping as we walked in, like, you legend! woohoo!

Totally bummed tho - NO iphone. Not even a off-limits, ooooh kind of deal.

There was some guy from SF who has been to like 20 Apple store openings and he travels the world to wait in line. Yeah.

I kind of expected the 'gay' in the air to be a bit more pronounced, but it's obvious Apple have worshipful fans who are definitely not 'geeks' in the sense we're all familiar with.

Of note is the quiet but probably very busy Telstra uber shop, directly opposite. I wonder what plans the T has in store for us?

God, don't remind me of that f***ing t[Life] store. My VERY LAST DAY at Telstra was plagued by some s***ty retail general manager who didn't organise her store opening properly and lumped 65 handset activations on me with a 4 hour deadline.

STAB STAB STAB!

Melbourne's getting a t[Life] store on the 26th of June. Brisbane might be getting one as part of the Northbank Plaza and 275 George Street complex Telstra's housing all their staff in from 2009. Basically every capital city will eventually have an "Icon" t[Life] store soon.

So I hear there's an apple store in the valley?

Confirm/deny.

t[Life] LOLOLOLOL

f***ing telstra can die.

that's awesome that you didn't que all day and still got the s***ty shirt.

you should ebay it like it's a big deal.

yep, someone was ahead of me on the curve on that one.

Care factor - 0

Apple had the audacity to send me spam via Gmail three times over the last week, informing me of their "Grand Opening".
I don't know how they got my e-mail account but I'm was not pleased to find out about the opening of a apple store, let alone one in Sydney.

haha dranged, nothing more depressing for people that wait in line all that time then get treated the same as someone that drifts down at the same time. I remember when we saw the midnight session for the last matrix movie - we'd bought tickets to a second session that was opened after the first session sold out.

We rocked up about an hour before the movie opened and then first thing we saw was an epic line of about 500 people. Thought that was pretty gay, but then we walked up to the front of the line and saw they had a whole separate line for people in this second session, and there were about 5 people in it. So we just walked up past this huge line and sat down more or less at the front of the other line.

Flying into Brissy international in the morning is the worst as about 3 or 4 fully loaded flights land and the immigration/customs check lines are huuuuuuuuge.

I rocked up and this immigration guy asks me if I have a new e-passport and I did, so he directs me to the side where they have the automatic system. I put my passport into the machine and it fails, try again and it fails, try again and it fails.. so the guy goes "Well the machines are playing up a bit, come up here" and he escorts me up the front of the 500+ line of people waiting to get their passport stamped and I was next through.

.. 500 people wanted to rip me to shreds :)

trog, for the 2nd and 3rd Matrix (and s***loads of other big movies) we did Gold Class opening night.

There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a massive long line of people who have been waiting for hours, and walking past them all and going in about 10mins before the movie actually starts.

how about now you just buy your tickets online and reserve your seats. lining up is for chumps.

ZzZzzzZZZzzzZZZ

how about now you just buy your tickets online and reserve your seats. lining up is for chumps.

yeh i'm going to pay a $1 extra booking fee for the privilege of buying online

Doesn't cost anything extra if you buy online at the South Bank cinemas (from what I recall).

at southbank you dont get reserved seats.

lolz apple stores and going to the moofies

yeh i'm going to pay a $1 extra booking fee for the privilege of buying online

a hour of my time is worth more then 1$

isnt there an apple store in fortitude valley

i doubt it, since this was the first one in the southern hemisphere.

There is a store which sells Apple, yes. (at least there used to be) but I think they also sold Bose and all other Yuppie gizmo's.

There is also an Apple store on Adelaide Street (Next Byte) but I guess since these aren't owned by Apple, they don't qualify as Apple stores.

a hour of my time is worth more then 1$

shrug, mine is too generally, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be discriminating about where you put that $1. I'm not going to give them an extra $1 on top of the already-ludicrous cost of going to see a movie when really I'm probably SAVING them money by ordering online

i guess you need to weigh it up.

$1 for an hour of your time and a guarantee that you are going to get the seat you want, not having to line up for tickets.

or $1 in your pocket and having to line up for tickets, lining up for a seat, having to get there early to do all this lining up with no guarantee at the end of it all you are going to end any better off then some guy who cuts the queue into the cinema.

one dollar is one dollar

$1 for an hour of your time and a guarantee that you are going to get the seat you want, not having to line up for tickets.

The prebooking thing is a waste of my time and theirs - I usually only go and see 9pm sesssions on weeknights SPECIFICALLY so I don't have to battle people for good seats. When I tried this the other week - first time since they implemented this stupid new seat booking system - I asked for a seat roughly in the middle of the cinema.

Despite there being not many tickets sold, she said "I'll see what I can do" and then sold me a ticket which, as I found out minutes later, was almost right at the back. There were plenty of empty seats near where I wanted to sit.

So the system is stupid - it must cost them more, both in terms of software/systems cost to manage plus extra time taken to serve customers, and it takes me longer to buy tickets and means I'm now LESS likely to get to sit exactly where I want.

To FURTHER test this system I bought tickets a week in advance again asking for tickets where I wanted and again I was shafted with bulls*** seats nowhere near where I was hoping in a half-empty cinema.

I dunno if the online system lets you pick exactly where you want to sit - that might alleviate that problem at least - but I'm f***ed if I'm going to pay $1 for what I've been doing for free my entire life - being well-organised enough to get to movies a few minutes early so I get the seats I want.

I stopped going to BCC cause of this and just go to Eldorado on a tuesday night as it's nevr packed and tickets are $6.50

I'm not going to give them an extra $1 on top of the already-ludicrous cost of going to see a movie when really I'm probably SAVING them money by ordering online

Exactly, they are saving money.

It's a f***ing scam.

nothing more depressing for people that wait in line all that time

People do heaps of unnecessary s***.

Most people are happy waiting in huge queues at the movies to have their tickets inspected and ripped, and to be directed to the cinema. I just mutter "f*** that" and walk straight past them to the cinema without any delay.

The situation just boggles my mind ...

I dunno if the online system lets you pick exactly where you want to sit

this is exactly what happens. see picture below.

http://dingo.net.au/pickingseats.jpg

i picked that seat with a mouse click.

Aye, choosing your seat with the online thing works well. However f*** paying extra for it when most of us have been doing the same thing for free by arriving that little bit early.

Finally I will be able to get all those Penny Arcade jokes!

Gold Coast cinemas don't have any of this bulls*** seating plan, though you can buy online if you'd like. There's really no need to though, as there's never a huge line. The longest I've ever waited for a ticket was about 5 minutes for the simpsons movie premiere.

I'm glad you all feel so strongly about the matter. If you pay money to do someone else's work you're a donk.

When i went to see Mongol after getting the free aus gamers tickets the cinema was about 1/6th full, yet it was total confusion and people were all over the place as they couldn't find their allocated seat or were in the wrong seats then other people would come and kick them out etc etc. Was ridiculous. They should only have reserved seats for the first week of new big releases.