In May of 1999 George Lucas released a new Star Wars movie. Something many fans thought would never happen. They hype leading up to it was insane!
In the days before online ticket sales many fans who wanted to be the first to see the movie waited as long as a week in some cities across America for a ticket to that first showing.
The line in Chicago started about five-days before the tickets went on sale, which itself was about a full week ahead of the first public showing. In the first few months as a photojournalism grad I was there too. But this time as a fan, waiting in line for my tickets. I only spent one day out there, but it was also, partially under a tarp during an overnight rain storm. Before the ticket window opened at McClug Court Theaters, I went and photographed everyone in line.
This set of photo scrolling below is about 2/3rds of the line. I’m not sure if I photographed the front of the line and just didn’t store the negatives together, but this is scan of the roll from that day.
Different news outlets were there several times to over the course of the week and I ended up making a cameo on the NBC 5 Chicago news tat day. See if you can spot me in this video clip below. As well as some of the other characters that were lining Ohio Street & Fairbanks that day.