The wife and I were looking to kill some time this afternoon, so we decided to make what should have been a routine run to the Mall of America. To say it was packed would be an understatement.
We go there a couple times a month, and have been for years, and we've almost never seen it this busy. The first warning sign was a quarter mile long line of cars backed up just trying to get into the ramps. Half an hour later, once we were in a ramp we were forced to circle around with dozens of other cars following people out to their cars for the rare parking spot. It was insane.
I asked the security guard if this was unusually busy, and he said no one saw this coming, and that it took him a half hour longer than normal to get in and find a parking spot. He said this was the busiest he's seen it since before 9/11. The vendors I talked to confirmed that it was unusually busy, but the clothing shops my wife visited said traffic was up but sales we no higher than normal.
I'm a wholesale gift manufacturer who's been calling on accounts all around the country this fall, and because so many of my accounts have been in a wait and see mode until after the election I'm much more sensitive, and excited, to seeing this happening. So many accounts I talk to described this public "holding their breath" sense waiting for the election, and so I can't wait to get back to my account calls this coming week to see if this public outpouring was a local or national experience.
But for what it's worth, the anecdotal evidence in front of me today points to the first Saturday after the election at the MOA as being as packed today as it's been in years.