Last night New York City put on a fashion circus, but Ringling Brothers it was not. Rather, the night was a spectacle of 150 models displaying the looks of the upcoming fall season to get the public excited about shopping this Friday for Fashion’s Night Out.

If the goal was to prove that people in New York really do walk the fastest, then I would gladly raise a glass to Anna Wintour and the planning committee at Vogue for a job well done.

However, when 171 looks are paraded in a maze-like fashion in the span of 10 minutes or so, it is obviously going to be extremely difficult to get a good look at the merchandise.

Why the organizers felt they had to cram so many looks into such a short time span is beyond us. They owned the night, as official New York Fashion Week shows are slated to start this Thursday. And they had top talent, too — participating designers included Vera Wang, Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Tommy Hilfiger, Thakoon Panichgul, Carolina Herrera and Francisco Costa.

But most importantly they had the attentive eyes of an eager public — some who shelled out between $25 and $400 for tickets to the event, others who watched via live webcast (including us from overcast Los Angeles).

So why didn’t they use it this event to their advantage? We endured an incredibly awkward pre-show by Vogue’s Editor at Large Andre Leon Talley and a blogger/model from Norway, Hanneli Mustaparta, in the hopes that a fantastic fashion show was ahead. Instead we were handed an exercise in how to walk in high heels in a line 150 deep and not cause a domino effect. We wish we could tell you all about the designs and trends to look for in stores on Friday, but you will have to see them for yourselves at Fashion’s Night Out as our head is still spinning. You can watch coverage of FNO: The Show on CBS this Tuesday September 14th at 10 p.m.