Did any other DUers attend yesterday's Kerry rally at Tempe Beach Park?

[City Lights]

We were there, but could not make any guess as to crowd size. This was our first event at this location, so I don't even know how many people the place holds. We left our house around 1:00. We parked in a parking garage, had a late lunch, and headed over when the gates opened at 3:30. They split us into two groups - those with blue tickets and those with white, Internet tickets. We had white ones, which meant we were not allowed near the stage.

No one searched us, nor anything we carried with us. Several people around us commented on how odd they thought it was considering the tickets said no signs, bags or umbrellas would be allowed in.

There was a great mix of people around us. I was very impressed by the diversity, both in ethnicity and in age. As the debate time neared, the crowd around us seemed to be mostly twenty-somethings. We were packed in like sardines. Shortly before the debate started we saw a police escort cross the bridge on Mill Avenue. We couldn't tell if any of the vehicles looked like they were carrying the :dunce:, or Senator Kerry.

Watching the debate with thousands of like-minded people was truly inspiring - especially in Maricopa County. The crowd cheered and clapped when Kerry was finished making a point, and booed and jeered at the chimp. One thing my husband and I noticed was that airplanes continued to arrive via the flight path that runs parallel to ASU. At some point during the debate, this changed from incoming to outgoing. Others noticed this as well. We would have expected them to shut down this route since it is so close to the University.

After the debate, the excitement level rose in anticipation of Kerry's arrival. Kerry sounded very hoarse when he spoke, and only spoke for what seemed like 15-20 minutes. The crowd was pumped. At one point, a jet flew directly overhead and Kerry paused until it wasn't as noisy. He pointed up at the jet and commented that it was probably bush leaving town aboard AF1. The crowd ate it up.

We had three generations of my family with us and my kids were just as thrilled as I was to hear Kerry speak. We were all disappointed that we couldn't actually see him, but were happy to have been a part of the event.

After it ended, we headed into downtown Tempe for a brew while we waited for the crowds to die down. The place we went had Kerry supporters everywhere. All in all, it was a great night, and one we won't forget anytime soon.

I forgot to bring my camera, but wouldn't have been able to get any good pictures anyway. I'm hoping other DUers where there who can fill in the blanks of my account - maybe provide a guess at crowd size, or upload some pics.

[democrat_patriot]

1. Sounded great!

I had school that night so I couldn't make it. It got very little TV coverage. * at the BOB was on every local channel. The ABC 'newsguy' even said 'turn up the audio, it sounds awesome!' Ack.

They showed 3-5 seconds of Kerry event. Than 10 minutes or so of * at the BOB. It was sickening. One channel said 35,000, other 40,000+.

Any idea of the Kerry event?

[City Lights]

2. None.

One woman I spoke to said she was told they would be passing out 12,000-15,000 signs after the debate. We never saw any signs in our area, but did see lots of people with them after the rally ended (coming from the area closer to the stage). I don't know whether the number of signs they were supposed to have was inflated, or if the crowd was so huge they ran out. The only other number I heard was that they expected around 20,000.

I saw one helicopter fly over the crowd with its searchlight on, but never saw any footage on the news. I saw a clip on MSNBC that looked like it was from our rally, but it was taken from the crowd toward Kerry, rather than the other way around.