BY LAUREN OBER • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • AUGUST 9, 2008
Carolyn Blum didn’t intend to leave the annual Burton Snowboards mega-sale with a new pair of red Mary Jane flats.
The 19-year-old really wanted a pair of snowboarding pants, but after losing the shoes she wore to the event in the crush of people trying to get into the sale, she had to buy some new kicks, too. She couldn’t go home shoeless.
Blum and her friends arrived at the Burton compound on Industrial Parkway in Burlington’s South End at 1 a.m. Friday in the hopes of being among the first people through the doors to nab the best deals. They would have had to get there way earlier than that to be first in line, though. Snowboarding aficionados — mostly teenage boys in flat-brim ball caps covering mops of shaggy hair — started lining up early Thursday night.
Friday marked the start of the 21st annual factory sale, where the previous year’s stock of Burton items, from boards to belts, are deeply discounted. The event draws snowboarders and bargain hunters from across the country and Canada, said Christian Connolly, the assistant manager of the flagship store and the keeper of the gate at the warehouse entrance.
The crowd outside the warehouse — easily 1,000 people deep — pulsed and heaved every time the Burton employees got on the megaphone to give them directions prior to the doors’ opening. When the crowd surged, cell phones, hats and shoes got lost in the swell.
Adam Deslauriers, a sale volunteer from St. Albans, said Blum wasn’t the only one to lose her shoes. He said two of the first 20 people in the door roamed around the massive warehouse without footwear.
“They didn’t even think about going back for them,” Deslauriers said.
In the first hour of the three-day sale, more than 600 people entered the warehouse, which was monitored for overcrowding. Veteran volunteers estimated that this year’s sale far outpaced those of previous years. The 2007 sale drew slightly more than 10,000 over the course of three days.
Sale regulars noticed more merchandise on offer than previous years. The Burton crew added 75 more tables of product. The downturn in the economy wasn’t having much effect on Friday’s shoppers.
Ambient reggae tunes filled the space as wide-eyed shoppers rifled through boxes of gloves, hoodies and long underwear. More than a few of the shoppers had been partying all night as they waited for the sale to open.
Some early birds, like Spencer Van Gennep of Boston, were aggravated by people who cut in line to get in. The 14-year-old waited outside in a lawn chair for eight hours only to get shoved out of the way.
But Van Gennep was over it by the time he got in the checkout line with four huge bags of stuff. Last year, his mother, Maureen, shelled out $2,000 on gear for two boys. This year, she thinks she got off easy, spending just $800 on clothing.
“We’ve come for the last three years,” she said. “We love the bargains.”
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