Sony Style Store, Skokie IL - Complete Debacle
Friday, November 17th, 2006My friends and I waited out around this store from 3am Thursday morning. Mall management wouldn’t allow anyone to camp outside the store so we spent the day watching the entrance. We had discovered that there would only be 12 PS3s available at the store so we figured we’d make a list to try and keep things as fair as possible due to the absence of anyone being able to actually line up in front of the store beforehand. We were told by security that by 3am Friday morning we would be able to actually line up at the store so we figured we would then use our list to line up in an orderly fashion and get our PS3s in the morning. It wasn’t meant to be. 6pm rolls around and more people started milling around the store like a pack of coyote circling a wounded deer…
A group of about 20 of us who are on the list and had been since the wee hours of the morning are approaching folks and adding them to the list if they want a PS3. Well, a group of kids said they didn’t like our list and started to lineup on their own outside the store entrance. Eventually at around 9pm mall security, Skokie Police and the store management show up. They had a great plan – they would make a little roped off area and let everyone wait out in the parking lot and run to get a spot in line at 3am – and then wait for another 5 hours until the store opened at 8am. Wonderful. So everyone goes to stand out by the closest mall entrance for 5 hours and call their friends to come down too. Some folks even went home and changed into track pants and shoes.
Wouldn’t ya know it, 2:30 am rolls around and about 150-250 folks are lined up at different entrances. Some folks were sneaking in and hiding behind big potted plants and stuff. A false alarm goes off and everyone makes a mad dash for the coveted roped off area, throwing punches, elbows and threatening folks all the way. But they have to come back and do it again. Skokie Police lines everyone up again and at 2:55 the mob dashes in for a second time…
Of course, nobody really abided by the boundaries of the legendary roped-off area and instead just mashed up against the window. There was another huge mob of people. For 12 consoles. Many of the folks had just arrived and didn’t know that they would still have to wait 5 more hours for the system. So at this time about 6-7 Skokie squad cars show up and a bunch of cops roll out and tell everybody to disperse completely off the premises, including the parking lot “because we couldn’t act like adults” … Everyone would now have to come back at 8am to do ANOTHER mad dash.
Cut to 7am. Folks have lined up again in an orderly fashion in the magical roped-off area and are patiently waiting. Mall security tells everyone to disperse again and sets up checkpoints for folks to wait at. Management will give a sign to tell everyone to “go” and then the mob will be off to the races… again. Of course, a group of about 20 fellows who just showed up around 7am start sneaking around cutting in closer and closer. Security repeatedly tells them to get back in line but they don’t. Eventually Security/Management just says “screw it” and tells everyone to go. Well, of course the 20 dudes who just showed up made it first. And that was that.
All in all the Old Orchard Mall and Sony Style Store management handled this situation in just about the worst possible way. And it all boiled down to mall management not wanting people camping outside the store. So, instead of about 12-20 people camping patiently, in an orderly fashion outside the Sony Store they got huge mobs and scores of security and police officers having to patrol the area, breaking up altercations and trying to keep the peace for around 12 hours. We had also repeatedly questioned Sony Store management about their plans for the evening and they basically had none – they kept changing plans and making things up as they went along. What in the world did they expect to happen? A case of horrible management all around.
A gang of monkeys could have come up with a better and safer plan. Most folks were wondering why they didn’t just do a lottery/raffle at 9pm when the store closed… hand out winning tickets and tell folks who had a ticket to come back in the morning. It would have been more fair, safer and a hell of a lot less work and stress for everyone involved. Ah well.
The magical roped-off line area:
About 60% of the mob is seen here at around 2:45am:
Cops move some of the mob back a bit: There were other smaller mobs at 2 other entrances as well.
And they’re off!
The mob reaches the store:
The mob up against the store entrance:
3am aftermath: One of the LED pillars in the display fell from all the folks banging on the windows.
