Johnny Fanatic’s Encounter
Part 1:
My dad and I arrived at Disneyland a little past 4:30 am. There were about 200 people there already…I couldn?t believe it! A Disney employee gave a big speech for about 10 minutes with instructions on how the red carpet arrivals would work. I looked in all the lines for people from the Zone until 6:30, and I looked again later on in the day by the barricades near the red carpet, but I couldn?t find anyone with the Zone ?identifier?, so I gave up eventually. I am really disappointed that I didn?t get to meet any Zoners! I was able to meet up with some fellow Johnny fans from JDR though.
By the time the gates opened at 6:30, there were hundreds of people in line behind us. At 6:30, once the gates opened, people started going crazy. We were told repeatedly by Disney employees ?not to run,? but nobody listened. Everyone was running! We found a spot by the red carpet that was right next to the barricades, relatively close to the main entrance of the park. A couple hours later, we realized that we would be directly in front of all of the TV cameras! MTV, VH1, The Insider, E!, Access Hollywood, CNN, etc. were all located right across from us. Throughout the (LONG!) afternoon, camera crews were going up and down the red carpet, interviewing fans and taping us screaming as loud as we could. I was only interviewed by one TV crew,