As this year’s Consumer Electronics Show wraps up, I’m reminded of a memorable night at a CES a few years back when I won big on nickel slots and crashed an intense laser TV party at the Palms.

I wasn’t invited to Mitsubishi’s Laser TV party at CES 2008, one of the most anticipated parties at the show that year. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. Before CES, I’d called and emailed Mitsubishi’s PR, and at the show I visited the company’s booth and hunted down on-site PR representatives. Basically, they all gave me the same answer. No can do, they said, if you’re not on the list, you can’t go to the party. To make matters worse, I didn’t even know where the party was, and I didn’t know how to find out.*

It was all quite frustrating to me because I had recently written a rather good article for Technology Review about the actual lasers that were to be used in laser TV. The technology was interesting and impressive to me. Plus, I was curious to see if laser TV would live up to its promise of vivid high-dynamic range, and amazingly crisp images.

On the night of the Mitsubishi party, all seemed lost. I had given up and started to pump nickels into a slot machine when I improbably won $44.70. Was my luck changing? After I collected my cash, I walked outside and saw a line of bus vans with their destinations posted in the windows, and one of them was going to the “Mitsubishi Laser TV” party. Jackpot. The ride was leaving in 10 minutes, the driver told me. So I strolled around for a bit and then joined a group of guys who stepped aboard just as the bus van was leaving.

Once at the Palms, we were guided by the kindly, young PR rep who had to endure the annoying (drunk) conversation of the group of men on the bus van. She seemed to seek me out as a fellow sufferer-in-sober-misogyny as we walked into the hotel. It was a good allegiance to make because an ally is often an appropriate substitute for a party invitation.

At the registration desk it was revealed that I wasn’t on the list. I put a quizzical look on my face–furrowed brow and a forced frown–and instantly my PR ally stepped in to “clear it up.”

We took an elevator up to the top floor of the Palms. The doors opened onto a cramped bar that was slightly wider than a hallway. I asked my PR friend if she could introduce me to someone who could talk about the technology behind the TV. She seemed skeptical and then came back with a Mitsubishi executive who avoided using any specifics when answering my questions. After the fruitless interview, I took my reporter’s notebook and explored the rest of the party.

In the main party room, there was one  65-inch laser TVs on display and only a few people left over from the main event–I had missed the official unveiling. Instantly, though, I knew that main room was not where I wanted to be: suited executives sipped cocktails in booths as barely clothed women danced on ledges above them. And the laser TV played on.  I quickly left the room to find something else to look at.

Luckily, there was another laser TV on display in a side room. And the video was 3D. I joined the crowd and was handed a pair of shutter glasses** to watch U2’s 3D concert. Bono kept reaching out to grab me, and I started to get a headache, so I handed in my glasses and continued to explore.

Going up to the mezzanine level, I  looked down at the main room again. The drinking men were gone, but the dancing women were still there. The mezzanine had access to the roof, and this is where I found the party’s producer. He had put all of this together, he told me. He also admitted that he was quite impressed by the laser TV. The thing they’re not talking about, he said, is how energy-efficient laser TV is. I nodded in agreement because I knew that in theory he was right. Soon our conversation dried up and we both just silently looked out on the desert cityscape, watching lights flash from the giant casino-hotel boxes. Finally I excused myself and left the party.

At the base of the Palms, I stood in a line for about 15 minutes to catch a cab. Amazingly, my driver was the same one who had taken me to the show in the morning. I was astonished at the coincidence, but my driver acted like it wasn’t a big deal. I asked him if it had ever happened to him before, trying to prove how astounding a coincidence it was, and he admitted that it had not. Still, he guided the conversation to the book that he was writing and his girlfriend was illustrating, and how he’s only going to be driving a cab for a little bit longer. At my hotel I paid the driver the fare, told the him goodnight, and went up to my room to file a blog post about laser TV.***

*At that time, I didn’t have a strong network of tech journalist buddies who could clue me in.

**The glasses synchronize with an infrared signal that comes from the TV.

***While you can buy Mitsubishi’s laser TV, called Laservue, for about $4, 000, the displays have not significantly shaken up the market. A great source of laser TV updates is here.