Page 1: Countdown for Zero Hour 
Page 2: Zero Hour for Zero Hour
Page 3: Day Two: Fast Cars, Bloodshed and Krumping
Page 4: Zero Hour Arrives

I have to admit something to you right here in the introduction -- I'm not really a hard core gamer. Sure, I'm a child of the Atari 2600, I spent part of my teens and twenties with Sega and Nintendo, and currently I even dabble with an Xbox and check in on my character on Star Wars Galaxies from time to time. But as far as the true definition of a gamer goes, I'm just not there… frankly, I'm far too addicted to sunlight and I look horrid in that long sleeve shirt/short sleeve shirt combo thing most of them have got going on. I leave the hard core stuff up to my kid brother and only see a rise in my interest in the gamer scene when I'm around my friends' kids or when I'm trying to impress someone in the hope of getting a date.

So, when the invite for the Xbox 360 "Zero Hour" launch event crossed my inbox, I was sure my excitement wasn't nearly at the same level as some of my soon to be fellow attendees. However, I am a student of marketing and advertising, and one that loves to see a large scale promotional event -- like I knew this one would be -- either become the crown jewel in a new product launch or fodder for books on how not to do things for years to come. Either way, I was in for the long haul and prayed to the gamer gods that I wouldn't be sniffed out by the real gamers in attendance as a fraud and ceremoniously eaten or whatever it is these people do to frauds… I'm not really sure.

Countdown to Zero Hour

The event first popped into existence, at least for me, on the morning of November 10 via an email invite from Xbox. Actually, this first email wasn't really an invite, well, not directly to the event at least. It was actually an invite to attempt to sign up for the drawing that might get you on the invite list for the launch event, which at this point was still being sold as "Top secret" and located at "an undisclosed location in the Mojave Desert."

I must have been one of the last people to get the email because the sign up process had started nine hours before this email hit my inbox. However, since I was still interested in the possibility of getting tickets, I searched for a sign up form on one of the participating sites in the promotion and put my name in the hat, then forwarded the email on to a few friends hoping that if I didn't get in, maybe one of them would, and sneak me in as their guest.

Five days later, while I was in the middle of picking off Sand People in the vast deserts of Tatooine, I glanced over at my laptop and noticed that I've received another email from the nice people at Xbox asking me to join them at 'Xbox 360: Zero Hour". Before I get a chance to brag, three other friends came on IM to inform me that they just received the same invite. Either this thing wasn't as exclusive as I thought or they were inviting a ton of people.

Included in this email was a link to the Xbox site detailing the rules for the event and how certain activities, including obtaining your very own Xbox 360 console at the event, were going to go down. I made a note on my calendar that it was going to start at noon on Sunday, November 20 and began asking myself if I was going to have enough steam to walk off a plane home from Vegas only to get in my car and drive out to the desert all in the name of video games.

Two days later on November 17th, all the lucky winners received another email that finally had the exact address -- Hangar 703 on Avenue P in Palmdale, CA, the former home of Rockwell and eventually Boeing in that area. An aircraft hanger… nice touch.

This email reinforced some of the previously mentioned rules, specifically that you would need to match your ID to get into the event and that you should bring warm clothes. This was the third time with the "warm clothes" line, which was two more than the lines about no drugs at the event, which is why I guess some people were starting to call this "Burning Man meets Microsoft" or "like a big rave with video games." It had been years since I set foot inside of a rave and the closest I had gotten to Burning Man was one of the regional events in Los Angeles, but I'm pretty sure that given the circumstances, this was going to be one of the least rave-like events that my marketing brethren could come up with.

Around noon on the Friday before the event, Xbox sent out a final email to ensure people that their entry wristbands were coming and to once again ask them to dress warmly. They also gave some hints on the schedule of events for the day and a half event, which included live gameplay of "Gears of War" with creator Cliff Blezinski, a "Quake 4" deathmatch, and of course a chance to play every one of the launch games.

At this point, I was still flying solo as most of my friends that were into gaming already had tickets to the event and my attempts to gather any stragglers were fading because they were either busy or "totally not into console gaming, dude." So, while waiting at LAX for my flight to Vegas, it dawned on me that the perfect person to bring would be someone completely outside of both the gamer and marketing circles, and who was quirky enough to get a kick out of the event itself…

I made a quick phone call and after a few minutes of convincing, my quirky non-gamer/non-marketer friend, who we will call Becky, was in for the whole deal, but only because "geeks dig me." I was in it for the experience, she was looking for her next boyfriend… oh yeah, this would be fun.

NEXT: Zero Hour for Zero Hour>