Things are working much better tonight. Most of the problems so far have been from people who weren't sure how to get into the chatroom or how to type messages once they got in. A couple of later arrivals said the room was very slow for them, but that hasn't been the case with most. Unfortunately, slowness is a fact of life when it comes to some chat connections.
Now that the bugs seem to have been worked out during these two test chats, we should be ready to announce an official chat night very soon...