I attended Super Bowl party-festival Gronk Beach, and somehow accidentally wound up as the referee of a Gronkowski pool volleyball game

Read more: I attended my first Super Bowl after 31 years as an NFL fan. Here's what surprised me most about seeing the big game in person.

Gronk Beach is a party produced by Medium Rare.

The idea is taking the party-loving brand that Rob Gronkowski produced over his NFL career and turning it into a one-day cross between a music festival and exclusive Las Vegas pool party.

Talking Stick Resort is located in Scottsdale, Arizona, and played host to several parties, put on by events company Medium Rare, over Super Bowl week.

For Gronk Beach 2023, tickets began at $199 and came with unlimited drinks and performances onstage by Lil Jon, 21 Savage, and Diplo.

If there was an MVP of the day at Gronk Beach, for my money, it was DJ Irie.

DJ Irie set the mood in the early goings of the party, guiding the ship from tipsy party to rager as the hours moved and the drinks flowed.

Rob Gronkowski was obviously a busy man at the party, and couldn't spend the whole time on stage.

Instead, the party would go by in shifts, with Gronk's brother Gordie sometimes serving as the designated onstage party animal while Rob was off attending to other business.

The system worked.

Near the back of the crowd watching the stage, I met Dylan, Sal, and Cody, three friends who had made the trek to the Super Bowl together.

Sal had caught one of the signed balls that Gronk had punted from the stage. While there were a few shanks on the early kicks, the ball that Sal caught was a solid punt off of Gronk's foot.

Asked what drove them to buy a ticket to Gronk Beach, Dylan looked around as the music pulsed to a crescendo.

"This right here, look at this," he said with general awe of the party. Can't argue with that.

"They announced if you had paraphernalia to bring it up. So I ran up," Anne told me of Gronk's signing spree. She had hustled to the stage to get her husband Bill's jersey signed.

"You had to throw it up and hope like hell that it got back to you," Anne said.

But despite the chaos, Anne got Bill's jersey back, and Bill proudly wore his newly signed gear.

Anne and Bill called their tickets to Gronk Beach a "drunken impulse purchase at the airport in Boston," and wound up having a great time.

"I was hoping for a photo! I was hoping for something, but never thought about a signed jersey," Bill told me. "Leave it to my wife. 35 years. This is why I picked her, baby."

Gronk Beach is not that dissimilar from a party you would find at one of the fancier Las Vegas pools on a summer Saturday. Drinks are flowing. People are dancing to a solid DJ. Beautiful people walk around to see and be seen.

Gronk Beach knows exactly what it's going for, and executes that plan well.

Having spent three hours making the rounds at Gronk Beach, I can safely say that if you hear the words "Gronk Beach," and think that you would have a good time there, you absolutely would.

Further, even if Gronk Beach doesn't sound like your thing, there's a chance you could have just enough Monster hard seltzer to get you having a good time as well.

While music continued to blast from the main stage, some fans filtered to a pool area to watch the pool volleyball match.

Fans could only watch from the side of the pool, but as a media member, I was able to sneak to the baseline of the court for a better angle.

At one point there was a dispute over whether a ball had been in or out. As several fans chimed in, I added my voice to the cause. The ball was out.

This, I would learn, was a mistake. As a journalist, I should have sat back and simply observed. It's a mistake I won't make again.

Because just a few points later, another close ball hit the water. Gronk's brother turned to me and asked "In or out?" At the time, I had been holding up my phone taking pictures like the one you see above, and had not been watching the line.

I had disappointed a Gronkowski. My bad, guys!

Thankfully, there was nothing at stake but party-fueled pride in the game. But I still quickly excused myself after the mishap.

The group nominated Kelli to be their spokesperson when I asked for an interview.

"We've been to eight Super Bowls, this is our eighth one," Kelli told me. "We went to Shaq's Fun House in Miami, so we decided we have to try Gronk's party here."

While the ticket price might seem steep to some, for Kelli and company, there wasn't a second thought to it, especially when a day of drinking comes included in the price of admission.

"Great party," Kelli told me. "It's worth it."

This is me trying my first sip of Monster's hard seltzer.

It brings me no pleasure to report that these things are aggressively drinkable. Thankfully, I was working, and thus limited myself to a single beverage. But yeah, as much as I wish I could tell you this was something to never try, it was undeniably what I needed in the moment.

Maybe it was the context of the moment. Maybe Monster hard seltzer tastes that much better at a Gronk-themed beach party. It's impossible to know.

Seriously though. DJs are great, and great DJs are tremendous.

If you are hosting a party and have enough money to hire Diplo to play music, I feel like it's a solid investment.

While Gronk had bounced around for much of the early hours of the party, he took his place on stage and raged there for the closing hour or so.

He would dance, he would spray champagne and water guns, he would pour drinks down the throats of attendees in the front row.

There was a mascot dance off at some point. I could not tell from where I was which costumed character won, but the winner seemed beside the point.

Again, hearing the words "Gronk Beach," you get a pretty solid idea of what exactly is in store.

If even that vague idea of Gronk Beach is appealing to you, chances are you'd enjoy the day.