Sports Authority SNIAGRAB line starts forming ten days before sale: Earliest ever? (PHOTOS)

All the comforts of home, if your floor's made of concrete.

Camping out for SNIAGRAB, Sports Authority's annual ski and snowboard sale, is a weird but endearing Denver tradition. And the tent city has already started forming, a week-and-a-half before the September 3 event gets underway. That's three days earlier than the 2010 SNIGRAB lineup of snow addicts determined to score "BARGAINS" spelled forward.

The tent currently in the bronze position.

Nobody was home when we ambled across the street from Westword's Broadway offices to the tents set up along the sidewalk bordering Sports Authority's flagship store, in what used to be called the Gart Sports Castle, a few minutes ago. But a Sports Authority staffer told me one of the tents actually popped up yesterday. Today, there are three -- and he said he's seen several people going in and out of them.

A sign on the first one suggests that its occupant doesn't want anyone stealing his place...

"I was here first, you bastards!"

The Sports Authority staffer didn't know if the blooming of a tent ten days before the sale, as opposed to seven last year, sets any kind of record, but he was definitely impressed. Me, too -- I think.

More from our Things to Do archive: "Party registration at CU: Will letting university know about bashes in advance prevent a ticket?"