All-Night Ragers, Bathtubs Full Of Beer, And Geeks In Vegas At The Largest Tech Conference In The World
Upon boarding the plane from SFO to Las Vegas, I couldn't help but notice a lot of likely CES attendees. The woman in front of me was transporting a monitor to CES.
First stop when I arrived, Treasure Island hotel. Since I was on the top floor — for VIPs, obviously — I had to use my key to access the floor.
This was the view from my hotel window. Not too shabby.
Some people arrive at CES in style.
Before we could access the press conferences at the Mandalay Bay, we had to pick up our badges.
The big event was Samsung's media presentation. These people got in line two hours before it started. And these were the people who had advance early access!
Here's the line I was in. It was literally the line to get in line.
And it just kept getting longer, and longer. Samsung has had to turn away people in the past.
Finally we made it in, along with about 200 hundred other writers. The Wi-Fi access was so terrible we could barely live blog the event.
But at least I got to see the now-infamous Michael Bay meltdown. Here he is right before he forgot his lines and walked off the stage in an embarrassing silence.
The next day, we attended the Marissa Mayer keynote at the Las Vegas Hotel. And guess what? This time there was NO Wi-Fi at all! Her big guest was new Yahoo employee Katie Couric.
It was a pretty lively hour, and featured guests like David Pogue, formerly of The New York Times...
and David Karp of Tumblr.
But by the time Yahoo started talking about advertising, this tech journalist decided to take a little nap.
Walking around the halls, you'll see lots of cool, and sometimes random stuff. Sphero set up an obstacle course for its circular robots.
This company had a skateboard ramp to show off its Steadicam Curve.
I still have no idea why these people were dressed like this, but you could charge your phone here.
This guy was testing a dancing game for kids ...
This chair literally gave me the best full body massage of my life.
It wasn't all fun and games, though. I spent a huge amount of time in the CES press room, a windowless warren with limited WiFi access.
On Thursday night, I attended a cocktail party with Tony Hsieh of the VegasTechFund. Just outside of the park is this preying mantis that shoots out flames. It was originally a structure at Burning Man.
They gave us these cool glasses.
Later that night, I attended the iHeartRadio party at the Haze nightclub in the Aria hotel where Krewella performed.
This iHeartRadio party initially seemed like it would be fun, but it was a hot, crowded mess full of annoying people.
So we left and headed to Caesar's Palace for a party put on by the founder of Stir Kinetic Desk. That's Stir CEO JP Labrosse, DJing.
The music and the smart desk are all fine and dandy, but what's a party without a bathtub full of beer?
When I got back to my hotel, this guy was passed out on a couch in the lobby.
CES is huge. Even if you get into the same room as some of the big names — like Intel CEO Brian Krzanich — you're sometimes still a block away from the action.
On the fourth day of the conference, people were passed out all over the place from sheer exhaustion. This blogger took a nap in the press room in the middle of the day.
I felt the same way. Wired and exhausted at the same time. Can't wait for next year!
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