ast night was the official release of the latest (and allegedly last) book in the world famous Harry Potter series. Bookstores all over the world saw the kind of turnouts usually reserved for Star Wars movies and iPhones. Our local Big Chain Bookstore was no exception.

I arrived at the store around 11:45 PM. I found a large group of people gathered outside.

Thanks to some clever namedropping (Moaning Myrtle, to be specific), I was able to crash the front door. Where once again, I found large masses of people. Having nowhere else to go, I headed up to the second floor. And again… lots of people.

I carefully navigated over and around people until I found some open space on the floor.

There were so many people in the store, at times, it looked like a refugee camp.

When it got close to midnight, the store began counting down to the minute when the book would go on sale. When the countdown finished, many of the store’s anxious occupants erupted into applause and cheering.

The store had implemented a bracelet system to help keep things orderly. One of the store’s employees began calling groups to the front of the line, based on their bracelet designations. The line started near the store’s registers.

Then it winded through several rows of bookshelves and back towards the stairs.

Then, the line went upstairs and around the second floor railing (see above photos). The rest of the line was held outside of the store, and more people were brought in as other customers, who had already acquired their books, were rotated out. It was definitely impressive to see the number of people who had come out, and as far as I could see, everything went down without a problem.

At one point, I wandered into the very front of the store.

It was completely empty. Not a normal sight for this section of the store.

It took about 90 minutes for the store to finally service all of its customers. And one Harry Potter fan had definitely had its fill of the magic.

I wonder how many times the store’s cashiers repeated “$22.62,” the cost for one copy of the book. Each time I was near the registers, I’m sure I easily heard it a couple hundred times.

After the last book was sold, I decided to head out so the store’s staff (many of whom had dressed up in costumes as different characters from the series) could get to work rebuilding the store. Hard to believe that the plaza was jammed with people just a couple hours earlier.

(Photos also available through Flickr.)