Throngs of students packed Stanford Memorial Auditorium to listen to President Barack Obama’s speech on Friday.

Obama’s visit was so heavily anticipated that Stanford held a lottery for students who wanted to hear in person Obama’s address to the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection, according to a San Jose Mercury-News report.

The paper quoted one student who had been in line since 6 a.m., three hours before the beginning of the summit, who said he needed to get there “really, really early” to get good seats, and that his friends camped at the location at midnight and were among the first six people in the door, allowing them to snag seats in the second row.

A heavy police presence and the shutdown of portions of El Camino Real and Palm Drive caused a heavy traffic backup by 11 a.m. as drivers sought a detour. Many had to park their cars on the university’s lots and make hte long trek to the auditorium.

Huge crowds of students and university employees brought their cameras and packed the auditorium on the side where Obama had parked his motorcade, waiting for a glimpse of the commander-in-chief. A handful of protesters were spotted.

The auditorium quickly filled to its capacity of 1,714. Students talked about the importance of issues discussed at the summit, especially cybersecurity in the wake of the high-profile hacks on Sony.

The event was not without drama. Although it featured some of the big dogs, such as Apple’s Tim Cook, tech giants such as Google, Facebook, and Yahoo all boycotted the event over unresolved concerns about revelations of government cyber snooping by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who fled to Russia to escape prosecution for his disclosures.

Although Cook made an appearance, he didn’t let Obama off the hook on the issue either, warning the president of “dire consequences” if privacy is sacrificed for security. He spoke moments before the president was due to appear.