Commenting on my own post: Word on the street is the Obama rally filled the 20K seat Key Arena and left thousands more waiting outside. Whoa!

Also, this just in, via my twitter feed:
oh wow, corny campaign songs... Rally ain't a rally without playing 'Celebrate'.

I wanted to whoop it up for Obama, but the place filled up 2 full hours before the start of his speech. 17,000 people! Let's hope that bodes well for his campaign.

More twitter comments:

"Some guy, some singer lady, and the drummer from Pearl Jam on stage, talking about a Fired Up song. Fired Up, ready to go?"

"Suddenly I see a bunch of Gregoire for governor signs appearing. I smell an endorsement appearance coming."

"Two random audience members are entertaining the rest of us with an impromptu dance-off in their seats."

I am eager for first-hand imaginary accounts! All those thousands of people, someone must have gotten in...

Gregoire did endorse, according to the PI:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_wa_gregoire_obama.html?source=mypi

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire endorsed Barack Obama for president Friday, providing a last-minute lift to the Illinois senator on the eve of the state's hotly contested Democratic caucuses

I was at the Obama rally!! It was incredible, Key Arena was literally packed, I heard like 20,000 people, plus 3,000 waiting outside! I had to run for ages to get to the end of the line, by the end I was almost in tears because I didn't think I'd get in.

But I got great seats and he was AMAZING. He was moving and charismatic and hilarious and if I wasn't 100% sure about him before now I am! There were old people, babies (one adorable one right next to me), and the crowd was so excited! People were doing the wave, dancing to "Celebrate" (it was on the big screen, haha), it was like a party.

Greguire introduced Obama, she gave a really great speech. Nickels was there too, but he got booed a little, haha.

Barack the vote!!

Rally one - Clinton at Pier 30:

The family and I rushed down to Pier 30 after work/school yesterday to try to get into the Clinton rally, but our crazy schedules had us getting to Western Ave at the late time of 7:30pm (for an 8:00pm start) and the traffic was insane and people were parking and walking for miles.

30 minutes later we passed Pier 30 by a quarter mile or so and crossed the railroad tracks and drove down a dirt road between warehouse spaces and parked and started to walk franticly towards the pier.

and then a train came down the tracks and blocked us, and this train was long and slow moving. Then it seemed it would finally pass, but instead it stopped and then started going backwards and then stopped and then returned traveling in the original direction. At this point 50 or more people were now waiting at our intersection, blocked by this train. When it finally passed, we all started the 1/4 mile hike in the mud passing people coming in the opposite direction telling us to give up because the pier was full.

Assuming that these people were scheming plants attempting to dupe us with false information, we kept moving. Of course once we were there (about 8:30pm), it was in fact sold out and a hundred or so people were waiting outside, peaking in windows and hoping to be let in. We spent another 20 or so minutes waiting and peaking in to the room, where a GIANT American flag was positioned behind a tall stage.

We didn't get in but we were able to interact with some High school jock guys that were hopefully being ironic with their ridiculous signs that stated things like "Hilary is a communist" and "Anyone but Hilary" or "Is Bush a Great President? or The Greatest President" They were quite vocal and seemed to enjoy heckling the crowd by shouting things like "Remember that time when you came to the Hilary Clinton rally and couldn't get in?"

I was later told that 5,000 people were able to get into Pier 30. If that is true, then the 5,000 inside added to the 100 outside and let's just say another 100 that gave up because of walking or parking puts the Hilary rally at approximately 5,200 people.

Rally two - Obama at Key Arena:

Learning from my mistakes regarding the Clinton rally, I gave myself some more time getting to the Key Arena this morning. Luckily I work in Belltown and it was a casual walk down 1st avenue. I was shocked to see that getting there an hour early still put me several thousand people back in line.

When I got inside, people were making mad dashes into every entrance and I only found a seat in the lower level because I was by myself this time and with some searching I found a single seat halfway down a row.

We had to wait over an hour before anything really started except for the occasional campaign video blasting on the jumbo-tron and of course the motivating music that mostly consisted of Motown and soft country.

The Motown songs seemed to get the best reactions from the crowd and there was a lot of dancing, but the best dancing moment came from an impromptu dance-off between audience members who were 2 or 3 sections away from each other.

At some point people desperate for seats figured out that they could climb up over the wall into the box seats and for awhile there was all sorts of clambering mayhem! At least until security finally put an end to it and cleared out the box seats.

The first speakers were Obama organizers(one for the East Side the other from Central Seattle) and they explained Caucusing to the crowd.

The second group of speakers were one of the Bergevin Brothers along with Reverend Pat Wright of the Total Experience Gospel Choir and Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron who introduced their music video for the song "Fired Up, Ready to Go?"

The third group was Representative Adam Smith, Mayor Greg Nichols and the big surprise Governor Chris Gregoire. They each gave good, motivating speeches, but Governor Gregoir brought the house down and people were on their feet and cheering.

We were told that Obama was late to the stage because he was speaking with the 3,000 people outside who couldn't get in.

Finally Obama made it to the stage and people went crazy and several minutes into his speech he pointed out that the crowd could sit back down if they wanted too, most didn't (at least not for the first 20 minutes or so). He was great, obviously the man can talk and has more charisma than any one person should be allowed and he had enough time to cover all of his strengths and hopes and people left wanting more.

At one point during his speech he walked to the side of the stage and picked up a bottle of water and threw it to someone in the crowd and later he asked for someone to help that person find a chair because she was becoming faint. He did this in a very casual way and tried not to make a big deal of it.

So the 17,000 people inside added to the 3,000 people who couldn't get in equals 20,000 people.

To re-cap:
Clinton: approximately 5,200 people
Obama: approximately 20,000 people

Democracy is cool!

the Obama rally was awe-inspiring. due to a lot of good luck and stealthiness on my part, i got in and got a great veiw of the stage and there was a lot of pre-rally happenings, and the details have pretty much been covered.
Obama, in my opinion, knows whats up. i find him very perceptive and receptive and of course as many people on here have mentioned, he's an exceptional speaker. he was especially so today to a OVER capacity key arena. a lady on the news tonight said that she hadn't seen anything like this since JFK. both his and hillary's speeches are on king5.com.
and the traffic afterwards was horrific! its good that that incredible crowd of people were interested in Obama but my god, a 20 minute bus ride from key arena to capitol hill took me an hour and a half!

Thanks for these great updates you all! I am getting really excited... I think we have two strong candidates to choose from, but Obama has that indefinable, magical quality that makes for epic leadership.

I am feeling optimistic! Guarded, yet optimistic. Excited to caucus tomorrow.

Obama certainly did speak with the 3,000 people waiting outside, and I was about twenty feet away from him when he did so. That's well within Stretch Armstrong handshake radius.