No official numbers are in, but New Mexico Independent staff can report that Congressman Martin Heinrich’s health care reform town hall meeting on Saturday was pretty much filled to capacity — 600 inside the auditorium, additional hundreds in an overflow room and still more outside.

The town hall crowd snaked around the parking lot of the University of New Mexico’s Continuing Education building, beginning to form in the morning for the 3 p.m. event.

This slideshow depicts some of the crowd outside as we waited to go in. There was political theater as well as signs depicting viewpoints on all sides of the spectrum. Those signs included one prominent depiction of President Barack Obama as a Sheik — suggesting that he’s from the middle east, or that Obama is a Muslim.

New Mexico Independent staff conducted a liveblog with a play-by-play of the event, including most of the questions and answers, which you can see here.

Once inside, based on those who stood up at various points, we estimated the number of people opposed to the congressional health care reform bills at around 30 percent. But they were vocal, with their discontent growing increasingly loud as the town hall progressed.

It was apparent that Heinrich strove for a transparent and unfiltered event, with an eye on making sure those in opposition were heard. He included the executive director of the Rio Grande Foundation, Paul Guessing, on the panel of experts who answered questions and the format was designed to allow un-screened questions. Heinrich’s staff collected names of people in transparent containers, and the moderator then drew the names during the event. Those people then were allowed to ask any question they liked.

After the event, Heinrich said at a press briefing that he was very pleased with how the event went. While people didn’t agree on everything, it was a great discussion, he said, and one thing he’ll take away is that they need to do a better job of explaining the bill in order to “get to consensus.”

He also said the concerns expressed were consistent with what he’s been hearing elsewhere, with primary concerns being how to contain costs and how to preserve choice. Heinrich said he thinks those who want the public option and those who express that they like the current system want the same thing, in the end: a choice.