New member, just got back from the listening party.
I was in the front near the second square of blocked off people near Sprint. Got there nice and early at 1030. Got yellow wristbands around 230.

From talking with the workers there at Sephora (very pleasant, not rude to me) there are two parties involved. Sephora the location and the marketing/management of Utada Hikaru (IDJ).

First for the location, yes it was small, however Sephora is not to blame. I've been to a lot of line ups before (used to be into the sneaker craze - hint to who I am) and this line up was handled very well. They were on the ball quick by posting up those barriers to keep people in a line and separated sections and routinely rearranged the barriers to account for more people.

They even were so nice as to serve coffee and donuts to those on the line! They were organized giving out the bracelets and the raffle tickets at the same time. This greatly lessened the possibility/trouble of line cutters since only those with yellow wristbands had a 100% chance of getting in. Whenever I spoke to a Sephora worker about something I was answer and not ignored or they got a higher up to talk to me about what I needed.

Second, I'd say most of the blame should be on Utada's music management. Unfortunately they chose a venue too small and jam packed Utada's schedule so that didn't have enough time between all these events to even have a small meet/greet/sign with the fans.

The listening party wasn't such a great idea as we know what the songs sound like and only the real fans would have gotten in by waiting so long. A meet and greet with a song or two sung live would have been such a better idea.

Anyway...it was fun. Met a lot of nice people hanging outside the Sprint store and made a few friends as well!