Final Harry Potter Book Tranforms Noe Valley Into Diagon Alley
Photo of costumed teens posing happily with their new books. These guys were great. They'd never heard of SFist before, so we skipped the questions about Ed Jew and recent shenanigans on the J-Church.
We hate lines and we shy away from new things -- we're definitely a second- or third-generation adopter for tech, and a wait-for-the-paperback guy for books.
But we guess this Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows turned things sideways. We were conscripted by our significant other to fetch the new book at midnight. Cover to Cover, a great little bookstore in Noe Valley, turned the book's availability into an event, with crowds and costumes and even a band. As you may expect from "Stroller Valley," plenty of young people were there, as well as plenty of adults. Despite ourselves, we got caught up in the energy of the event. After the jump, check out how it all went down.
Photos by SFist Jer.
Around 6 p.m. the store closed early to get ready for the big event. It reopened at 10 p.m.
Wow! Total zoo when we arrived at around 11:30 p.m.
Nothing will make you feel quite so old as people half your age covering Bob Segar's "Turn the Page." The singer totally pulled off that world-weary vibe though. Great job, guys.
Screams -- yes, screams -- broke out as one of the costumed store clerks finally unveiled the sealed boxes of books and started to open them.
Sam Gabel, one of our neighbors, was among the first 10 people or so to grab his book. We weren't surprised to see him and his family at the event -- it felt like half of Noe was there. The only surprising thing was that we ended up in close enough proximity to talk a little bit.
These two young ladies just couldn't wait to crack the book open. We hope they don't plan to post spoilers when they finish.
All in all, it turned out very well -- an odd sense of community and fun, all in the name of a pretty decent series of kids' lit.