After the morning rush I decided to head down in the afternoon.
My experience was mostly good with a few suggestion for improvement.
Tesla had a good variety of configs lined up all sorted by color. Upon arrival we were greeted by Valet's who parked our car and guided us to the entrance with the red canopy to get started.
Along the way to the door we walked through the lot to check out the inventory. It was immediately clear which cars were available. Cars with paper on the dash that said sold, some with the monroney sticker on the dash with tag hanging in the dash and no sold sign.
After reaching the entrance there were several queues just inside. It was not obvious what each was for and most assumed it was just registration. There may have been some signage, but instrucions were not well posted. The rundown I got from someone else was that you walk the lot, find a car not already sold that you like, pull the tag inside and bring it to the line where they will get you started with checkout.
With that knowledge we walked around and found the exact config I was looking for, but alas it was sold. I was at first a little disappointed but I never went into this expecting a car today.
On a positive note I actually think this was an awesome way to compare all the options and colors right next to each other. I realized at that point I don't want the color I chose. Something about the red with White interior just called out to me which was never even on the table before.
This is where things get interesting. If you don't find your exact config this is the time to go back to the queues and the two left most lines at the entrance were helping people who could not find a match.
Once I got to the front of the line and helping a few others in the line understand the process I spoke to the specialist. They offered to check all of the inventory of vehicles since they had some hiding in the back and around the side of the building. At that point the news made it through the line that all AWD models were sold out. They then searched all inventory locations in the Bay Area for a match and asked if I was flexible on any options. After informing them I wanted to keep my current config but change from MSM to Red they said there was no inventory for AWD available, but could get me a delivery date the week of Sept 24th. Not yet having a date assigned I was very happy with this. The interesting thing is the pickup is at the location of today's event and not at the usual delivery center down the road. So not only will they likely have more of these free for all events, but they are also taking some of the pressure off the main delivery center.
In summary, it was pretty clear this event was thrown together quickly, but I think with some refinement this could actually help them move cars a lot faster than trying to pair people up one at a time. Overall it was a good experience and I now hope my delivery date sticks.
On a side note my ISA that I spoke to by phone back in June when I switched to AWD ended up being the specialist that helped me in line today. Crazy that she actually recognized my name and remembered me.