As promised in our last podcast, my co-host in crime Craig Johnston attended Thursday night's NYC AT&T Bold Launch party and has reported back with images and some notes from the event. The highlights? Michael Phelps was on hand to give a short speech, Madonna chimed in with a video address to the crowd, and everybody in attendance received an IOU for a Bold. Many more pictures and details after the jump!
NYC AT&T BlackBerry Bold Launch Party - October 16, 2008
The promise of free food and a free Bold brings out the crowds!
After an hour of standing in line, Craig finally made it in.
Michael Phelps takes the stage.
Olympian Michael Phelps had a crowd to talk to!
Free Food! Looks tasty!
Good times being had by all.
A shot of the back of the hall.
Madonna addresses the crowd via a gigantic BlackBerry Bold
Live performance by Delta Goodrem
Another shot of Delta
The grab bag - a Delta Goodrem cd and an IOU for a Bold
It's never a good sign when the device that's launching isn't yet ready/on-hand to be given away at its debut party. Thought it sorta makes sense that the Bold wasn't handed out just yet when you take into account the AT&T Bold delay reasoning we posted last Friday. Let's hope it launches the first week of November (even sooner would be a bonus!) and beats the Verizon Storm to market by at least a couple of days. It just seems wrong if it doesn't pan out like that.
HUGE thanks to Craig for reporting back to us CrackBerry Addicts. At least he was one of the few in the crowd rocking a BlackBerry Bold, even if it was a slightly-cursed one from Rogers.
Reader comments
NYC AT&T BlackBerry Bold Launch Party Pictures!
Did anyone received their IOU from the NYC release party?
Hopefully by the time our Bold party in DC comes up, they will have bolds to give out. I could care less whether or not they have them to give out. If i do get one i'll probably sell it.
Anyway you said the venue was too small for the amt of ppl that showed up??? I heard the same about our party coming up, the room is supposed to be able to hold 250 ppl and apparently 450 ppl have registered. I hate crowds so i hope this is not the case...
Anywhozz, i'll send you pics from our party, hopefully it'll be better. So sad i couldnt go to the launch party in my hometown of NYC! I wanted to go to both but thought it might be a lil obnoxious.
The mystery of the Bold as spun around. I'm sick of seeing threads about this phone and no release date. Honestly who the hell wants and IOU for a phone that may never see the light of day in the U.S. My enthusiasm for this phone has reached a new low. I feel its a slap in the face when you hand out an IOU for some thing just get the damn product out there!!!
I envy them. NYC Launch Party?!! Cool! Actually it all looks familiar.
Playstation hosted something similar for the PS3 Launch. No Madonna though, but I did win my PS3 for free. Saved me from standing in line for one.
And as for the Bold, I coveted from the moment I heard about it, and ordered one from Rogers on release day and have been loving it since.
My biggest dilemna when I am mobile, is choosing whether I want to look at Playstation Forums, Crackberry Forums, or just play games on the PSP (yeah have one those too). So difficult to have multiple gadget addictions.
I envy them. NYC Launch Party?!! Cool! Actually it all looks familiar.
Playstation hosted something similar for the PS3 Launch. No Madonna though, but I did win my PS3 for free. Saved me from standing in line for one.
And as for the Bold, I coveted from the moment I heard about it, and ordered one from Rogers on release day and have been loving it since.
My biggest dilemna when I am mobile, is choosing whether I want to look at Playstation Forums, Crackberry Forums, or just play games on the PSP (yeah have one those too). So difficult to have multiple gadget addictions.
I'm SO disappointed...I really am. I'm past the point of being angry w/ ATT. I just want this phone released already!
Here's my story:
I've had a BB 7100 w/ ATT since 2005...this past summer, it started to just die on me...wasn't running very well, bottom line I needed a new BB. With the Bold announcement last spring, I was excited for the device to be released in the SUMMER.
It's now October 17, and I had to break down and buy a 8310 Curve (great device) to replace my 7100. I couldn't wait any longer for the Bold, and the 7100 was on life support.
SO...now I have until Nov 9 (my return date-30days, i purchased the curve Oct 9) to return the Curve, purchase a Bold and pay the difference...
I haven't sent in the rebate obviously because I know I need to keep the Curve box intact.
NOV 9...my last day...23 days...
COME ON ATT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!!!
*
A big, fancy, Launch Party without a product to launch is pathetic. Get it together AT&T (the explanation of why there is a delay doesn't matter).
HEY I HAD A BOLD TOO WHEN I WENT THERE YESTERDAY! AND THE FUNNY THING WAS THAT IT WAS AN AT&T BOLD SO EVERYBODY WAS COMIN UP TO ME AND THEY WERE LIKE HEY IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS! AND ONE GUYS EVEN VIDEOTAPED ME USIN IT! IT WAS FUNNY!
Yup, sure beats the Bold launch party held in Vancouver back in July. But hey, I got my IOU, and finally... in September I got my Bold :~) Still would have liked to have gone to the NYC shindig and one can never have too many Bolds ;~)
I am leaving AT&T and joining Verizon for the STORM. I had enough with this delay and all this talk about a phone that will never get released in the US. Sadly they say it's because of the 3G not being "up to speed" but it's really the Iphone that has AT&T by the balls.
While I think the BOLD is great, it reminds me of the 8800 launch and then came the Curve and so on. IMHO, I would wait for the Magnus launch in May where you get the touch screen AND a kepyboard AND a smaller form factor.
I was at the event last night (in fact, I'm in the first, second, and third pictures ... wish I knew that the guy behind me was from crackberry) and it was very disappointing. Aside from the logistical issues (we were pretty close to the front of the line, and it took over an hour to get in; at the previous event we walked right in; the sound system was so horrible we couldn't understand what anyone was saying, and the room was too small for the number of people), the fact that we didn't find out that we weren't actually going to be getting a Bold until after we'd had a while to have a drink or two felt like a bait and switch.
Granted, if AT&T had told us that they weren't going to actually have devices for us at the event, I'm sure they would have had a much smaller turnout, but it's time for AT&T to be honest with their customers.
I would agree that RIM/AT&T could have done a better job with the venue and line. Since I was apparently right behind you :-), I too stood in line for a ridiculously long amount of time. Compared to the 8800 launch where I just pretty much walked in.
Then I got in, only to find that there was nowhere to sit, so the standing continued. Again, unlike the 8800 launch where there were actual chairs to sit on.
The food was good, the drinks were good. I also agree that there were audio issues in that room.
Finally, unlike the 8800 launch where we walked away with actual devices, here we got told halfway through the evening that we'd get them when they launched.
I can't believe the bitch and moaning.
I hope you use this email address to get yours and they don't send you one.
Why does everyone these days feel they are entitled to everything on a platinum platter? It's not enough that you are going to get one for free ? It's not enough that the live entertainment was fab ?
Gee so sorry you had to stand in line. The Gotham is an amazing space.
I guess your not as special as you think you are in your own little world. Maybe if you were "special or even an executive of importance ", you would have gotten to entered early like our group did.
The only disappointment for us was having to listen to the has-been Madonna, but then you sound like you would be a fan of hers.
TTFN
Da Bears
Wow!
Someone is having a bad day, or maybe they have a "case of the Mondays" on a Friday.
I gave up with AT&T and just got an unlocked Bold. Works perfect. Now I don't have to deal with the horrendous Bold release date threads "My dogs uncle's best friend said Nov 8th!" Still might have to pick the g/f up a Bold when it drops.
.....or else!
I'm thinking of starting one of those chain emails:
You know...the "a friend of mine at at&t told me so it MUST be true."
Then have them fwd to their address book to raise money for some kid with horrible facial acne or something and to really sweeten the deal tell 'em you get a new Bold.
Course, if they DON'T forward the email to everybody they know in a rediculously small amount of time, a piano will drop on their head or something.
It could work.
Need to have a store, be a sales rep, or like me, know a guy...
How do you get invited to these launch parties??? they gave out goodie bags to everyone..thas wassup...i want to go the storm launch party..i got a 3G but i want that phone..when rogers gets it..Im so buying it and unlocking it so ATT can rock out with it...but i want to know how do you register or get invited to launch parties for phones
Unless you have a very good friend at RIM or AT&T, you need to be a significant read: corporate) customer to get invited. Even then, the invitations are limited primarily to those who are executives or responsible for managing very large numbers of devices.
My company is one of the largest users of Blackberrys globally, within the top ten overall), and we only were allowed to bring 4 people. I know that sounds like a lot, but to give you some perspective, we have well in excess of 500 blackberry administrators just to manage all of our devices. That gives you an idea of how many devices we have.
The real goal of these events is to drum up press and enthusiasm for the device and get it seeded into the hands of those who are in a position to generate more sales for the vendors. Taking off my corporate hat and putting on my "regular guy user" hat, sure, I'd love to get a freebie, but that isn't going to happen.
(I apologize for the anonymity and not naming my company, but we have very strict rules about discussing which vendors we use for services in public. Since I like my job, I need to respect our policies.)
I'm going to the Chicago launch party! I'll snap some pics and submit. Hopefully instead of an IOU I'll have a Bold in my goodie bag!
Was the bold camera used for those pictures? They look horrible. Hopefully that is not a hands on review of the (lack of) quality of the Bold camera.
It has been my experience that cell phone cameras do quite badly in low light situations. So yes this was the Bold's camera, I can't say that they were terrible when you consider it is a phone camera and it was in a dimly lit event hall.
Using this camera outside or in brightly lit situations produces much better pictures.
Keep in mind the Bold camera is only 3.0 mp compared to curve's 2.0 mp, so I think the pics turn out pretty good.
If you know of these events ahead of time could you post it. I could have went....or at least went and stood in line.
Not sure if you had to register for this event either
the bold was exciting but its all about the storm
<-- The bold is so much "hotter" than the storm. The touch screen thing is no longer dropping my jaw. Having gone through two iphone's so far...it gets old. I know I know, the storm is so much better than the iphone in every way absolutely possible.. but here's the thing, its still going to get old. The bold represents so much more, most of which is class. Your one of the people that went for a refined and capable phone, not just a quickly slapped together new tech showoff.
first of all the bold should have been in the usa in june 2009 but ill let you be the judge when the storm comes out in the usa and the bold comes out in the usa sells will speak for itself check the records on open day view and when that happen please pick up your face can you here me now good!!!
I were there. The food looked tasty.
Oh...and getting a free Bold would have been cool too!
Let me get this straight, So you have a launch party and you get an IOU not a new phone. Man, Microsoft and Sony got it all wrong with there launch parties.
Finally some hope for you guys that want the Bold, HUH?
What do you have to do get into one of these parties?