For my first conference of the year, I chose to go to CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) – the largest consumer electronic convention in the world. It was ridiculously big. There were 5 maps/pamphlets to cover the enormous halls. Initially, I was convinced to go by a friend of mine from high school who was going to cover it for his blog. A week before the show, he pulled out, but luckily I convinced my co-worker to go as well. We just went to check it out really, our company doesn’t really have much business being there since this conference isn’t focused on developers but it was a great decision to go and great experience. This might turn into an annual trip.

The hot electronics this year seemed to be 3D, mobile devices, and this bad ass drone toy. But honestly, I could care less. These things will come out eventually and you can see everything on the internet these days. For me, this trip was filled with meeting cool new people. A lot of the social media crowd was there and they’re all about having and making connections with other people. I was invited to this blogger party with a lot of big name tech people (people you’ve probably never heard about). Through a friend I had met in San Francisco, I was introduced to hand full of other people and had a great Vegas night, we’ll just keep it at that even though the blogger party was called “It Won’t Stay in Vegas.”

I will tell you that I went through the AVN conference too (the porn convention). That was pretty interesting. It’s not as crazy as they show in the movies but you still have your girls wrestling, stripper poles all over the place, and questionable uncomfortable toys. It was actually pretty clean, all the girls had to wear pasties and thongs so you don’t really see anything. It was actually pretty similar to CES: bunch of guys walking around and checking out booths. Which begs the question, where are the women? Other than on the stripper poles…and the Ed Hardy booth at CES (which was pretty much as raunchy as AVN).

Vegas kicked the shit out of me. I must’ve walked the strip about 10 times back and forth. If you know me, you may call me cheap. I don’t think I’m cheap…I’m just not going to pay for something I could get cheaper. (And if I have time, I’ll walk rather than take a taxi) You walk up and down the strip, you walk up and down the conference halls, you stand around in clubs, you stand around in casinos…you’re always on your feet. But it’s fun for people watching. You see all kinds of people from all around the world coming to Vegas for a myriad of reasons.

After the conferences, Vegas was pretty deserted. That city is going to have a rough year this year. It was pretty nice being able to walk around without all the crowds, but Vegas is a town designed for crowds, so I dunno, it was kind of weird. I decided to end my trip with a couple of Vegas shows cause what’s a Vegas trip without a show, right? I had to see a Cirque du Soleil show since I’m addicted so I saw “O” which many people claimed was their favorite. I wasn’t too impressed to be honest. I liked the Wynn’s water show “Le Reve” better. Mystere is still my favorite Vegas show, which is Cirque. I have 2 more Vegas Cirque shows to see now which are apparently the worse…”Believe” and the newest, “Viva Elvis.” Before “O” I went to see the Blue Man Group. They were pretty fun but there were a few awkward parts. Again, it wasn’t full, so for the finale where they drop toilet paper on the audience from the back to front, there was nobody in the back … so the workers had to wait, collect a bunch of toilet paper and walk it to the first row with people…weird.

All in all, it was a great trip, probably my best Vegas trip. I love meeting new people and these are the type of people I’m sure I will see at San Francisco events and future conferences like SXSW (which is only a couple months away *waves at Steph*).