The line for Toby Mac lasted around an hour or so. It turned out that we could only bring ONE item for Toby to sign, so I decided to have him sign the CCM mag. My sister waited in line with me and had a Toby Mac poster that she bought at the souvenier table a few hours earlier (for 8 bucks) for him to sign -- it was a gift for a young friend of hers who likes Toby. My sister was not familiar with Toby's solo work, but she liked his performance. There were two young girls in front of us in line (we were at the end of the line practically -- since we had actually waited until his performance was done to get in line) but their mom (?) pulled them out of line after around 15 minutes, saying something like "Don't waste your time." I felt bad for them, because they seemed to be big fans of CCM and Toby.

So, we waited and waited in line and finally we got near Toby's table. We were only allowed to take photos from behind the rope, but I managed to get two decent photos from there. (They were actually the only 2 photos I had left on my last roll of film!) In retrospect, I shouldn't have taken so many photos of the stage from my seat, since those didn't show up too good. I should have saved them for the autograph table. Now I know...!

So, a man in a red shirt was standing next to Toby and you'd show him what you wanted Toby to sign. If it was a poster, he would roll it out for Toby, and then Toby would just have to sign it without having to roll it all out, etc. Toby seemed to greet everyone with a smile like he was a friend of theirs, and shook everyone's hand, and even hugged the girls who asked for a hug (and there were many). I felt that his hand must hurt from all that hand-shaking, and I thought that Toby must know what it feels like to be a politican running for office, having to shake everybody's hand, smile for the camera, etc. My sister thanked him for waiting there for all of us in that huge line. He simply said, "God bless."

A lot of the people who waited in these autograph lines were simply having the artists sign the posters or publicity photos that were being sold at the souvenier booths. I thought that was kinda lame, and felt proud that I had brought with me last month's CCM Mag with Toby's face on the cover all the way from another state to have him sign it. When I sat the mag on the table to show the man wearing the red shirt, I think I said something like, "I wonder if you've had any of these here yet." The man said something like "You know, they have Amy Grant on the cover of the current issue." I think I said, "Yeah, I know," as he handed the mag to Toby to sign. Toby joked, "They went from rags to riches." Then I shook his hand, and I said something like, "It was nice to meet you, Toby."

That was it. Third Day was still playing, but I told my sister that we could take off for home now since I figured that Third Day would probably be done in about fifteen minutes anyway, so we might as well beat the rush home.

We had also left early the day before, while Smitty started to sing "Breathe," because it started sprinkling rain and I worried that it was going to be a downpour and I didn't want the posters I bought to get all wet. I got to hear him sing "Live the Life" (my favorite MWS song), so I'd gotten my money's worth by that point. My friends from church stayed and said he played for like 30 to 45 minutes after we left. Ah well, I didn't want to risk getting soaked in the rain. As it turns out, it stopped raining by the time we got to the parking lot.