As thousands of gamers made their way into the hangar, they were greeted with 400,000 square feet of Xbox 360 systems and high-def Samsung displays.  Everything was bathed in green light, giving the building an unearthly feel.  Throughout the night, folks taking a break were treated to demos, contests, and other events on the main stage.  Lots of different games were loaded onto the systems, and everyone got a chance to try them all.

Zerohour25 Zerohour23 Zerohour24 Zerohour30

Hardcore gamers stayed glued to their favorite games through the night.  I didn't want to take someone's spot, so I stayed away from the systems until they opened up.  At about 3:00 am, I got some time with Kameo, PGR3, and a handful of other games as they opened up.  At some point, a group started gathering bean bag chairs, and began making a giant igloo.  Other took the time to catch some zzzzz's.

Zerohour20 Zerohour21 Zerohour22

I got to hang out with a few folks I'd met online, and I took a bunch of pictures and went backstage to upload them to flickr and our company intranet.  The Xbox.com guys were all huddled backstage capturing, editing, and posting in near-real-time.  In the photos below are TriXie and Major Nelson working into the night, Arnie in the PR room, and coworkers of mine on the PR team Cinthia, Michael, and Erika. 

Zerohour26 Zerohour27 Zerohour28 Zerohour29

Then at about 5am, I headed to the hotel to catch a couple hours of sleep, then pack up. I headed back to the hangar at about 9:00, then left at noon to catch a plane in LA to be back in Seattle for the Midnight Madness event. I missed the big rush to pick up consoles from the Best Buy "pop up" store, but Major Nelson and Xbox.com were there to capture all the excitement.