Apple Fan Boys Salivate. I Had A Golden Ticket...... @juliank @photocontest

In 2011, Apple opened its first official store in Hong Kong, and I was invited.......

Actually, that's not quite true. A friend of mine was invited and she took me along. It was quite exciting if I'm honest and there was lots of free food and drink as well as one or two local Hong Kong minor celebs, allegedly. I had no idea who they were.
We stopped about an hour. Ate and drank, bought nothing and then left.

I've never been a huge Apple fan to be honest despite having used a Mac as a project manager and network designer way back in the late 80s but I do think they look nice !

I did go to another official Apple launch in the UK back in about 1995 when Apple launched their PowerPC range of CPUs in the UK. That was a very grand affair and I got a free night in a hotel out of it. Don't remember much as there was an awful lot of free wine at that event but I do remembering them doing live benchmark testing against the Pentium P90 and I remember the canapes were a bit poor....

There were a number of 'launches' by the major IT manufacturers back in the day, and often, hugely discounted demo machines were available. In my parent's attic, I still have a mid 90's Epsom A3 Inkjet Printer which I bought from them as a demo machine along with a couple of other new printers for absolutely peanuts. Their big dealer launch was at 'The Belfry' Golf course.

There was money to burn in IT back then but by the turn of the century (LOL how old does that make me sound?) the excesses of the late 80s and 90s had subsided and the freebies slowly dried up.......along with most of my customers!

Good old days!
@juliank #longexposurephotography