Just reading through some older threads today, and found this one. Its been nice reading everyone's experiences. Much like Scott, Mikey, and others - I didn't go to MM in 99. I wasn't totally into collecting yet, and just really starting to read up on the line and figures at this point. I was in college (in a smaller town), and worked at the only retail place in town - a Pamida (similar - and now owned by - Shopko). A co-worker and I got the job of setting up the Star Wars display for the next morning since our manager knew we were fans. As we set them up and looked at them, we both decided to get a few. I didn't go nuts, I think initially picking up the following figures (if I remember correctly):
Qui-Gon Jinn
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Darth Maul
Yoda
R2-D2
C-3PO
I know for sure I picked up Jinn, Kenobi, and Maul - and I think those were the other three. After that, I picked up more and more figures here and there (at the same time buying POTF2 figures I missed before I started collecting). It was pretty much downhill from there.
For the 2nd MM for AOTC, I did actually go. We still lived in the same small town, so a friend and I drove to a nearby (larger) town to Wal-mart. We got there about 11:45, and there was probably 10 or so people there. It was somewhat busy, but I ended up getting most everything I wanted - with the Royal Guard and Dooku being the ones I missed the first time I believe. I got pretty much all of the initial wave of figures, a couple ships, and the Reek. It was the most I ever spent on Star Wars at once, by far.
That is until 2005's madness. This was after we moved to "the city", so there were quite a few more people there, but the crowd was generally polite and helpful. I found pretty much everything I was looking for (Unleashed was the toughest one - seems funny now since they were overproduced), and THIS was the most I had ever spent on Star Wars. Most of the figures, vehicles, etc. - plus Unleashed, Galactic Heroes, etc. The wifey helped me out this time, and was really great about it. I got up early the next morning to hit the "tent sale" at Wal-Mart to get the Early Bird set (which I could have waited on since they were sitting on shelves months later), and hit Target to look for the exclusive Vader (didn't ever see it), but ended up grabbing a couple of figures I missed at MM, as well as an Unleashed Grievous. Yikes, that was a spending spree the likes of which I never intend to do again. All in all though, it was fun having all of that stuff at once - kind of weird too.