At the Very Top of Invesco Field, Feeling More Than a Mile High

Obama's campaign heralded the spectacle as an all-inclusive celebration typical of a candidate who has thrived because of big crowds and small donors. But the setup was also derided Thursday night by advisers of his Republican opponent, John McCain, as theater and an exercise in indulgence. Early in the afternoon, Plouffe took to the stage at Invesco Field and offered a defense of the venue, saying, "We're opening this up to America."

Dale Lanan, an Obama supporter from Longmont, Colo., who spent more than eight hours inside the stadium, said: "All I can say about the whole thing is it's huge. I've never seen anything like it. Everybody who is here will remember this for the rest of their life."

For many of the people in the 500 level, the memories were hard-earned. To get to the stadium, they had to navigate major road closures in Denver and endure a bomb scare when security officers found a suspicious duffel bag on a commuter train. When they finally reached Invesco Field, many of them stood in line for as long as three hours, emptied their pockets at two security checkpoints and roasted in plastic chairs for most of the afternoon before the program started.

Most concession stands ran out of food long before Obama's speech, and others sold out of water. Crowds rushed to buy every kind of Obama souvenir imaginable. T-shirts, playing cards, shot glasses, umbrellas -- all transformed into commemorative items with the addition of the Obama imprint.

Near the end of the night, a few minutes before Obama took the stage, Harris and his friend Carman Cornelius sat in Section 514 and recounted their day. They had woken up early in Colorado Springs, found child care for Cornelius's four sons and waited in an unshaded line for more than two hours outside the stadium. Then they walked up the stairs to the 500 level, settled into some of the worst seats in the stadium and waited for "what seemed like forever," Harris said.

"But you know what?" Harris said as an Obama introduction video began to play on the stadium scoreboard. "This was definitely worth it."

Staff writer David Nakamura contributed to this report.