It takes so much time for six hundred people to come to anything even sort of resembling order. It might happen a little faster if the archmagi who had called them all here were Asmodean, threatening fire and the lash every time someone realized they needed directions to the necessary or that they'd forgotten something at home and rushed off to get it, roaring in with nine layers of devils at their heels at every oversleeping Shelynite and lost sortitionee... but even then it would probably take a while.

Aniol arrived respectfully early and chose a spot in the nobles' quarter of the room and has, alas, finished his book. Now he's just people-watching.