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My mistake was thinking that those who wake up early in the name of work have anything on those who skip sleep altogether in the name of fanatical love and corporate adoration.
Despite my best-laid plans, I was not able to get into Steve Jobs' keynote presentation at Macworld Tuesday. Judging by the throngs of people still standing outside when I ditched the line to pursue Plan C at about 9:20 a.m., a lot of other conference attendees shared my pain.
Still, Mac 
devotees can take solace in the fact that thousands of people waiting faithfully for hours in the cold, dark predawn was yet another win for Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) 
.
What Happened to A and B?
The first sign of trouble appeared weeks ago when I received my verification for a press pass.
Yes on the press pass, said IDG World Expo, the show's organizers -- but no on the keynote.
It's all because there's no CES overlap, IDG told me. All the tech journalists on Earth are apparently making Macworld the final lap of a geek news iron man triathlon, and not everyone with a general press pass gets a keynote press pass. And the press pass they would give me wouldn't be available until 10 a.m. Tuesday.
There went Plan A.
Buying In
Plan B involved asking my publisher to pay my way into the keynote with the cheapest ticket I could find: a User Conference pass. That was the lowest-cost pass I was eligible to buy that also granted access to the keynote. Given that I was press, IDG was even kind enough to discount the price.
At that point, I barely even cared whether I'd end up in the main auditorium or the overflow area. All I needed was a live video feed of the presentation and an Internet connection. I wanted my story filed fresh. I wanted to send live updates of each announcement as they happened. I wanted to earn the traffic that only the fastest reporting of a new Apple product can command.
In the absence of a WiFi connection, I was even ready to plunk out text messages.
But just because a User Conference pass made me eligible for access didn't mean it guaranteed me access.
Surrounded by the Faithful
My flight arrived in San Francisco Monday night, well after the Macworld registration booth had shut down for the evening. My plan was to check into the hotel and wake up at 5 a.m. I got to the registration desk by 6 (the earliest they said they'd reopen), grabbed my User Conference pass (I was 24th in the queue -- yes, I counted), and rushed over to the line already forming around the block at the other convention hall. I had all the supplies and coffee I needed to stand in line for hours.
I could tell straight away I was among people whose devotion goes far beyond anything I'm able to muster up for a computer brand. There were tents in the front of the line belonging to people who had the same pass I carried but who'd picked theirs up a day earlier and had set up camp for the night. Then there were those who'd collected their passes Monday, caught a few hours of sleep, then started standing in the small hours. The end of the line was two long blocks away -- around the next corner of the Moscone Center.
As I finally rounded the corner and took my place, a conversation drifted back to me about needing to go to just one more keynote before Jobs inevitably retires one day. From the lengthening line behind me, I heard a woman lament that last year she couldn't get in, so this time she decided to show up extra early. When it comes to live performances, lines like this typically form only for religious figures or rock stars. To the people who were standing around me, Steve Jobs is perhaps a little of both.
I waited out the hours. For a while, it looked as though it might rain; thankfully it did not. The line moved in hopeful rushes of a few dozen yards, followed by anxious waits that had many of us standing on our toes a lot.
Around 9 a.m., the time at which the keynote was to start, my neighbors and I found ourselves in a cruel predicament. The end of the line was within sight -- within arm's length, really -- but there was no movement. None. No information was offered as to whether any of us should keep waiting and hoping. But 20 minutes later, I bailed. It was time for Plan C.
What Can You Do?
I left the line and made my way to the much less crowded South Hall, where I would prep a skeletal outline of a story and flesh it out with information as it became available. As it turned out, Apple's Web site admins began posting information about all the new products and services instantly as the keynote closed, which made my job a little easier.
I walked away deflated but unable to name a thing I could have done differently short of sleeping on the pavement or tasering a security guard. The former might be on the agenda for next year.
Despite my disappointment, I can't say I caught the worst of it. I was there for work, and even though I couldn't get the job done the way I wanted to, I was at least able to file my story in a reasonable amount of time. Frustration aside, it didn't turn out to be a huge deal .
On the other hand, the people who were standing around me were all there simply for the love of Apple, and they'd waited for hours in the cold for no other reason. They probably caught no more than a half hour of the keynote in an overflow room. Those behind us -- the line still went around the block when I bailed -- probably didn't get in at all.
A lousy morning at work is one thing, but I could sense some real disappointment in the acolytes around me.
That's the Point
The User Conference pass I bought isn't just a ticket to the keynote; it's admission to a lot of events all over the conference. However, I can't help but think some people out there just bought a ticket so they could sit in on a real live Steve Jobs speech for once. If you bought Rolling Stones tickets, would you be satisfied if you only got to go to the beer tent and the t-shirt booth?
Now would be a good point in the article to criticize IDG for allowing so many hearts to be broken in such a chaotically mismanaged line. It would be appropriate here to say that they should have figured out long ago that Steve Jobs' keynote address is an event in and of itself and should be ticketed separately; that those who stand no chance of getting in should be given the courtesy of being turned away days in advance and allowed to do something else with their morning; that anything less is a slap in the face to those who support Apple the most.
That, however, would be pointless, because I suspect the organizers welcome the chaos.
I'm sure Apple loves seeing images pop up on news programs and Web sites showing the world the clamoring masses fighting their way to hear Steve Jobs speak. The message: "This is how many people are pining away for Apple. When's the last time you saw that sort of devotion for a corporation?"
Sure, it's not as extreme as, say, whipping yourself on the back until you bleed, but what other for-profit computer brand's annual show-and-tell gets people to willingly wait outside all night in the cold like it's some sort of holy pilgrimage?
IDG and Apple could make it easier, but doing that would kill the mystique. As it spills into the streets of San Francisco with TV news crews standing by to point cameras and wave microphones, the line to get into the Macworld keynote is nothing but brilliant marketing .
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