FORKS – The Rainforest Arts Center was filled to the gills with room only to swim through bodies as close to 600 fans of “Twilight” fans celebrated the release of the DVD in Forks, where the movie is set.
“There are about three times as many people as we were originally expecting,” Annette Root, owner of the store Dazzled by Twilight which organized the party, said in the midst of the fans packing into the room.
About 200 managed to cram into the room at a time with hundreds more lining up around the block — amounting to about 600 fans in town — waiting for others to filter out so they could get in on the Friday party.
The Quileute Dancers shared portions of their history including their sacred “Wolf Dance.”
The fans came from as far away as the East Coast to Hawaii.
Some stores also saw visitors from Norway and Australia, but it was Megan McHugh of Pasedena, Md., who won one of the prizes at the big party for being the farthest away.
She won a rose carved out of a cedar tree’s inner bark, an authentic Quileute-made item.
“It was beautiful; I thanked her like a million times,” McHugh said.
At the Dazzled by Twilight party, which began at 10 p.m. on Friday, fans began lining up to get in at 8 p.m.
By 8:15 p.m. more than 60 had already lined up.
By 10 p.m. the line extended around the corner of the block and was about three people wide.
At 11:55 p.m. — just before the DVD was about to be released at the Dazzled by Twilight store — fans were still lined up in the hallway and to the end of the block trying to get into the party.
As a surprise for fans, Root showed the movie on a large screen in the Rainforest Arts Center beginning at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
More details will appear in the PDN’s Sunday edition.
