We completed our oath's today and that culminates our naturalization process. Our sincere thanks to Huracan, ahsieh, et al for providing helpful information on these forums, congratulations to fellow oath takers and best wishes to people still in the queue.
Now onto our oath experience...
1. They do allow jeans, camera's and cell phones, but you need to put the cell phone on silent mode.
2. My wife and I had different oath times for today, but they allowed us to take the oath together. They'll do that so long as they have the naturalization certificate.
3. One woman had showed up without an invitation letter. Apparently she was supposed to have her oath in Feb, but missed the invite due to address change. As per her story, when she called USCIS she was asked to just attend this ceremony. But naturally due to lack of certificate, the officers at the ceremony didn't allow her to attend but instead asked her to schedule INFOPASS and was assured that she'll get scheduled for the next ceremony. Man, you should have heard her talk to USCIS officer -- I've never even imagined someone could talk to an immigration officer like that.
4. They had formed multiple queues outside the theater before allowing people inside. Some officers were going about looking at how the applicants had filled the questionnaire on the invite. Then they would scribble a row no. although eventually those row assignments were overruled by another officer at the door of the theater.
5. Once inside the theater, they gave us a packet of papers (letter from President Bush), US flag, booklet for oath+pledge+national anthem and another for constitution and declaration of independence.
6. They took oath invite and green card at the row, while assigning a seat.
7. As mentioned earlier by others before, they have voter registration instructions in 5 languages (English, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tagalog and Spanish).
8. They had brought a lady to sing the national anthem and she did a very good job at it.
9. Then they went through the list of countries whose citizens were naturalizing in the session. 472 applicants from 52 countries, mostly from China, Mexico, India, Philipines and Vietnam. One of the 'countries' mentioned was 'Hong Kong'.
10. There were speeches by 2-3 USCIS officers and some video about immigrants and quotes by other naturalized citizens.
11. Then they administered oath of allegiance followed by some minor celebration and mutual congratulations between new citizens.
12. One Chinese lady, apparently a news anchor on local Chinese TV channel, spoke about becoming a US citizen. She became quite emotional and thankfully didn't give a long and winding speech. Then another lady applicant administered the pledge. Both the ladies were given their naturalization certificate on the stage.
13. Then they played some videos such as voter registration info, speech by President Bush and one generally patriotic song.
14. Distribution of naturalization certificate was the last activity. Some people got their naturalization certificate at their seat and others got it on their way out of their row. They do confirm your name while giving the certificate.
15. They hand voter registration packets on your way out of the theater seating area.
16. The process started about 15-20min later than scheduled and took another hour to finish. The oath and pledge don't take more than 5min. Overall, it is a very well organized process and handled with no confusion. The USCIS officers were helpful, cheerful and quite accommodating. There is a separate upstairs gallery for your friends and family and you'll generally hear some infant going kwyaaa...
I hope people taking oath at Campbell Heritage Theater will find this information useful, though my guess is there will be minor variations from ceremony to ceremony.
Have a happy life on the East Coast.