This was my first BF experience and I only went for the 32" Westinghouse, since I've been on the market for an HD tv and I didn't think I'd see a better price for a while.
The BB I was at (5th ave in Manhattan) wasn't actually that crowded, as far as I could tell. I showed up at approx. 1am and there were maybe 100 ~ 120 ppl in line at that point. It was raining though, so that might have kept a few folks at home in their beds.
Everything was single file until around 3, when I noticed a few points in the line where random people would walk up and join the lines with their buddies. It's definitely annoying when you've been standing still in the rain for 2 hours and some idiot jumps out of his car, nice and warm, and he's 20 ppl in front of you in line. I got my TV though, so looking back I'm not as bothered by this as I would have been if one of those guys had got the last ticket.
Speaking of tickets, the BB staff didn't start handing them out until 4:40. Since they started late, the one guy handing out the tickets was super rude. If you didn't know what you wanted he basically snapped at you and went on to the next person. I get that he had a lot of vouchers to hand out, but it's not anybody else's fault that they didn't have their act together until 20 minutes before opening. Maybe he was just cranky. I don't know.
The laptops were by far the biggest item. I fact, I think they went a little heavy on all the HDTV sets thinking they'd be huge sellers, but at my point in the line, I got the 19th ticket for the 32" westy (with a min. of 14 per store) and when I went to get the set, the guy in line in front of me had ticket # 24. I saw where they were all stacked against the wall and I would guess they had maybe 30 of them out at the beginning.
