One thing I love about The Grove in Los Angeles is the book signings at Barnes & Noble. I follow “Barnes & Noble Events at The Grove” on Twitter and read that Mindy Kaling was going to have a book signing in October. Her TV show, The Mindy Project, is one of my favorite comedies right now. I had a feeling this book signing would be a popular one! Barnes & Noble at The Grove have their own Facebook page and according to their event page, over a thousand people planned on attending. It ended up getting postponed from Friday, October 2nd to Thursday, October 8th.
We were in line by Topshop around 5:15am. There was less than 30 people in front of us. When the sun was out, a security man passed out blue tickets. The ticket marked our place in line and needed to be given to the cashier when we bought the book. It meant that we would get a wristband for the event that night. Once it was 9am, security would take 30 people at a time into B&N to buy the book. They gave us a wristband and a piece of paper about the event (pictured below). We got our wristband+book and were out by 9:15am. Very quick! If you parked at The Grove parking structure, don’t forget to validate your parking at B&N!
We had silver wristbands and were in group A. At 6pm, they would start letting people in for the Q&A. Traffic was bad, of course, so we didn’t get there until 6:30 or so. We noticed groups A, B, and C were allowed upstairs to the Q&A area. The seats were already taken, so the rest of us were standing behind the seats. Here’s a video clip I recorded from that night of the Q&A.
Once the Q&A was over, Mindy started signing. Everyone who was seated got their books signed first. Then security called out for everyone that was in group A, etc. We weren’t allowed to take photos or videos when we met her. There was a photographer there to take a photo for you. They passed out a business card that provided the link to the photos and would be online within 24 hours.
This was the first book signing I went to and I had so much fun! Mindy was very sweet and it was smart to have a professional photographer to get the line moving. I will definitely be attending more book signings in the future.
krysten 