IKEA-MANIA! Grand Opening...

YES, I was one of them. I got a $10 IKEA gift card as one of the first 2,500 people in line.

In swarm of fans, IKEA feel the love
From all-night campers to early birds, thousands partake in social fanfare
DRAPER - For pure atmosphere, the grand opening of IKEA's newest retail store resembled an NBA playoff game.

Just as Jazz players trot past a line of teammates exchanging high and low fives during player introductions, customers who entered the giant home furnishings store passed through a gantlet of hooting and hollering IKEA employees pounding sausage-shaped balloons together to amplify the decibel level.

The royal treatment was not reserved just for the die-hards who had camped out for a day or more in IKEA's large but still not completely paved parking lot. The welcoming fanfare lasted more than 1 1/2 hours as a steady queue of people - those who had camped, followed by those who arrived at the crack of dawn, then those who had showed up closer to the 9 a.m. grand opening time - wended their way in orderly fashion into the 311,000-square-foot, two-story facility.

"That was a show, for sure. It was a good capper to my extended 15 minutes of fame over the past two days," said Matt Juillerat, a 29-year-old Murray man who had the distinction of being the store's first customer, having set up camp in the IKEA parking lot at 8 a.m. Monday with his friend, Lisa Criswell. For 48 hours, Juillerat and Criswell read books, played cards, "met a lot of good people and just watched the party grow and grow."

And grow it did, attracting thousands of Wasatch Front residents. They had little trouble reaching or leaving the store near the intersection of Interstate 15 and Bangerter Highway, testimony to months of planning by Draper City, the Utah Highway Patrol and the Utah Department of Transportation.

Some customers were eager to collect free gifts offered to early arrivers by IKEA. Others wanted to buy the company's distinctive home furnishings. Still others were there simply to be part of a social extravaganza not unlike the middle-of-the-night shopping sprees after Thanksgiving. "I came down just for kicks," said Carol De Silva of Cedar Hills, a veteran IKEA shopper while growing up in Barcelona, Spain. "It's like the Olympics of shopping," added Renee Wright of West Jordan.

Trina Fatani of North Salt Lake helped her sister, Kuuipo Malungahu, secure the No. 8 spot in line, taking turns holding the position they staked out Monday morning. Fatani eventually was joined by her children, 6-year-old Abish and 4-year-old Amelia, who passed the time playing with other kids and throwing a bright yellow Frisbee handed out by IKEA.

"It was actually quite fun, with a radio station here [playing music] and hours of just talking to neighbors. It was like a day camp. I'd do it again," said Fatani, proudly wearing her "I Slept with IKEA" T-shirt, also yellow in keeping with the dominant color in the flag of IKEA's home country, Sweden.

Observers included American Fork's Jamie Dalsing who, being a good daughter, had been at the store since midnight with her cousin, Ashley Fletcher of Orem. Dalsing was reserving a spot for her mother, Kathy Davis, a SkyWest Airlines flight attendant who tries to serve only on flights to cities where IKEA has stores - Oakland, Tempe, Minneapolis, Burbank.

"I've been waiting for IKEA to come here forever," Davis said. "I've always said that if I had a brand new house, I'd have it bare inside and have IKEA come out and do it up completely."

The Parkins of Sugar House, Jeremy and Kalli, are essentially doing what Davis dreamed of. After buying a house last fall, they intended to drive to the IKEA in Tempe to buy their home furnishings, but shelved that idea upon learning the company would open its 30th U.S. store in Draper. For the past nine months, they have been waiting - using furniture from Deseret Industries.

"We're going to redo our kitchen, all the appliances and, most importantly, get a couch and a high chair," Jeremy said, bending down to peek into a stroller at his 7-month-old daughter, Isadora.

Strollers were everywhere Wednesday. Singles and doubles, bare-bone units and top-flight models. The IKEA store even has an elevator capable of holding at least 10 strollers and accompanying parents at one time. "I was thinking [the opening] might be scary for the kids," said one mom, Lisa Gee of Salt Lake City, "but it was fun."