I know, complaining about an opening reception party. But hey, if I was just a regular attendee I would have been very disappointed (assuming opening reception parties were my thing). The event was held at TAO, a restraunt/night club at the Venetian. Very cool place - from the 4 square inches of decor that I could see through the mass of humanity!

TAO is about twice the size of your neighborhood Applebee's - or at least the part of TAO that Microsoft was hosting the reception in. Now imagine trying to stuff 1700 attendees into that super-sized Applebees. A fun and entertaining environment it is not. Feeling like a dull rave party, it was just oppressive in the see of bodies. Lines at the bar were six to seven people deep, food line even worse, and no where to sit. Add to that that it was close to pitch black in most of the place and needless to say it was disappointing.

The conditions were the norm for a lot of nightclubs in Vegas which go by the mantra of "we save on heating costs by the oppressive build of body heat and BO". So maybe the event organizers just blindly followed the advice of the Venetian event planners when they said "sure, we can accomdate you at the Venetian" which was code for "time to play stuff the bus".

The good news was that I quickly bailed and headed to the Mirage for some much deserved poker time. Bad news was that despite sitting at a table with near morons (that is money you are playing with, buddy) I could not catch cards or a break and ended down for the evening. Hopefully that will be corrected tonight.