I've been in one really serious Black Friday mob situation before, and let me tell, I wanted OUT and I was willing go elsewhere and pay more than full price even while it was happening. It would be interesting to see if there are pictures of what happened. I forget if I took any because of how crazy it was.
Anyways, several hundred people were in line and some teenagers bum rushed the doors when they opened them at midnight. It was absolute chaos inside, and even while trying to escape I got slammed into metal shelving inside multiple times. I remember getting severe bruises but no cuts bad enough to require stitches. I actually went into full panic attack mode, as did others, but while I became paralyzed, others just started screaming, scratching and hitting others.
Several police officers appeared and had to arrest people to get them to stop being crazy. I remember at least three people who had were climbing the shelving all the way up to about three stories and ripping open the plastic wrapped products to get what they wanted. Some people were physically fighting over items. So weird.
For me in the past, I like Black Friday for the social experience and chatting with people in line and going 'treasure hunting'. I've definitely noticed that the experienced people who are going for fun/the event do not go to stores that don't hand out tickets and/or handle the badly behaved (usually by even kicking them out). One nice thing in my area is that stores have had 'trial' runs before this in the last week or two to simulate Black Friday to find any areas of concern and to train staff.
Oh, and that store with the chaos, they went bankrupt.
And if you need something to celebrate on the Friday after Thanksgiving, it's also National Sleep In Day.
