“Hundreds of Apple fans and onlookers clogged the pavements of George Street in the heart of Sydney’s CBD tonight to witness the opening of Australia’s first Apple Store.
Fifteen minutes before the allotted hour of 5pm, the queue to enter the store stretched from the corner of George and King Streets, around the block and back down York Street, almost to Market Street.
In places the line was five deep and police, City of Sydney council officials and private security guards had their job cut out keeping order as workers spilled out of their offices and merged into the streets with late night shoppers.
With fans penned in by metal barricades and flashbulbs illuminating York Street, passers-by could have been forgiven for thinking an international movie star had just arrived on a red carpet for a movie premiere.
Inside the store as zero hour approached, Apple Store staff faced the massive, 15m high glass atrium that frames the store and began singing, dancing an clapping.
For the people at the head of the queue, 5pm marked the end of a 30-plus hour vigil that earned them nothing more than a free t-shirt and the right to say they were among the first customers to visit the new $15 million store.”
“They are all magnificent, but there’s something very special about this [opening],” said Steve Cano, Apple’s senior director of international retail, as the crowd poured in to the store. “There’s a real energy.”
Click the image above to watch a Multimedia presentation of the beautiful new Apple Store.
Full article here.
