Here was my experience.....we had no intentions of camping out. We arrive in Chicago around dinner time on Friday, and since we were passing the stadium on the way in, we stopped to see what was going on. There was a bunch of people by the loading dock. I think the band was already in and sound checking, so they were waiting for the band to leave. I saw all these people with wristbands and asked Romi what that was about. He pointed out this guy handing them out so we (me, Phil, and friend) went and got them. The guy said we had to come back between 5-6am. It sounded too good to be true. We left b/c we were starving and didn't want to wait 4 hours for the band to finish. We went to bed at midnight, got up at 4am. We were going to get in line at 6am b/c that's when I thought the lots opened but I came on here and luckily read Beth's post about the lot opening at 5am so we picked up our friends at their hotel and got to the stadium around 5:15am. We parked and got in the line. There were various colors of wristbands and numbers on people's hands, but I don't think it mattered, we just got in the end of the line where it was when we arrived and that was that. Fair enough, IMO. I did not expect anything to come of the wristband and would not have cut people who slept there. My wristband said #181 and there were about 200 people in front of me, so it didn't really matter anyway and we were quite satisfied with our spot. Luckily since we were at the front, we were under that tunnnel and shaded all day.
Overall, my GA line experience was one of the best ever. At least in our group and around us, there was no drama, no fighting, no one trying to enforce wrist bands or line numbers. It was packed at the beginning and Tim shouted for people to back up, so we did gain a bit more space pretty quickly. In all other lines I've been in near the front, there has been like two hours of tension with people fighting, trying to cut, challenging the line Gestapo, etc and I personally did not see or experience any of that. There was a dude in a huge walking cast and he walked through the gates first while everyone cheered.
I had a good experience with security. They were respectful to us and very forthcoming with information. They told us everything they knew unlike at some venues where they treat you like shit and are intentionally as vague as possible. The one guy standing at the rope by us explained how he wanted to send the people in and it ended up going down exactly as he said.
The only bad thing was as soon as we got in the building, lol. I was in the first group. They let about 200 people go in, so we all went through the gates, got tickets scanned, but then when we got into the building I'm not sure what happened b/c I couldn't see but we all got smashed and crushed. The security inside was shouting at us and threatening to throw us out for pushing but people just kept coming in b/c the security outside was letting them run in and no one was moving. I guess the band was still sound checking? I dunno, it was a total cluster fuck but luckily one person in my group was one of the first 20 people on the floor and she grabbed the spot we wanted (inside ellipse, back rail center). So in the end we were where we wanted and honestly had our pick of spots. It was weird though b/c she got in right away, then a few minutes later I showed up, and then it was nearly 5 minutes before Phil showed up. I also heard from Beth that some people that came in the second group were already given floor wrist bands outdoors (while we were log jammed waiting to get ours on) and they found a different entrace? Not sure I heard that right.
Anyway....the ellipse was smaller than I thought, even at the back we could see all the expressions on the band's faces. People who said it is packed and loud are 100% correct! The back of the ellipse was more packed than the front of the ellipse last tour, and it was extremely loud.
