My experience almost getting a 30 series GPU at the Tustin location

Senate

Information on this matter seems a bit lackluster so I'll share my personal experience, your mileage may vary.

I drove 5 hours from the Phoenix area Thursday night and arrived at the Tustin location around 4am Friday (today).

Upon arrival I noticed quite a few cars in the lot but no people in front of the store. I parked and went to the front of the store to read all the signage in the front window which all mostly pertained to covid guidelines and nothing (that I could find) about procedures for obtaining a limited availability product.

Thinking I was early, I parked in a location where I could see the front of the store to see when people would start lining up. After about an hour I noticed people were parking and then walking off the property, bushes blocked the view so I thought they were maybe parking in the Micro Center lot and walking to another nearby business.

Eventually I walked over to the other side of those bushes and saw the line of about 25-30 people complete with chairs and sleeping pads out on the public sidewalk.

At 7am security went to the front of the line and started sending people 2 at a time from the public sidewalk to the front of the store to get vouchers, this process was slow presumably due to the stores verification process to avoid scalping. The people getting vouchers reported that the store had 3080's, 3070's, and 3060ti's all in stock.

At 8am I had gone from about 25-30th in line to 6th when the security person said that no more vouchers would be given today.

How many spots in line did I miss because there was zero communication about where the line was forming? If you enter the store parking lot from the entrance I came in there are bushes completely blocking the view of where the line is, not to mention it is pitch black at 4 in the morning.

The icing on the cake is that the store might not even get any cards the day you decide to go, so theoretically if I wanted a card I would need to get there betweeen 10pm and 12am to secure a reasonable spot in line, only to find out that there may be no availability that day.

I'm willing to camp out, but I'm not willing to drive 5 hours and camp only to find out there is zero stock for that day. Actually I am willing to do that at this point, but I would be extremely frustrated and disappointed, more so than I am now.

The process isnt perfect but I wish there was more communication.

Have a nice day.