I have never been to a convention. Writing programs come through and I know that I should go to them, but I never have (I don't want to pay money to talk about something that I love, I don't know it's just weird). Although I've never been to a convention, one thing that I have done is lived in a town where conventions are a dime a dozen.
http://www.vegasmeansbusiness.com/planning-tools/convention-calendar/?e_keyword=&e_sortby=5&formid=&e_sortdir=2
Conventions in Las Vegas are more common than drug raids. They happen all the time. They come in different sizes, in different shapes, and in different numbers, but there's always a convention happening in Vegas.
Growing up in Vegas, I never understood what the appeal was to come to Vegas. It's super hot, it's dry, and every one that ever comes to a convention stays within a ten mile radius of the airport, and they never get to actually experience the town. They stay in their hotels, clog up the streets with unnecessary traffic, and just make things annoying for everyone else that lives there.
There are two conventions that make everything in the city hurt for one solid week before life returns to normal. CES and AAIW. CES is the tech show. Everyone that is anyone that wants to do something with electronics is there for CES. CES is "the" place for all things electronic. Nerds and geeks flood the streets trying to act like they're high tech companies while real businessmen hide in their suites on top of hotels. It's not so frustrating on the actual flow of the city, than it's super annoying to just have to deal with the people.
Then there's the AAIW (also known as SEMA). This is the bane of Las Vegas natives.
The AAIW is the automotive aftermarket show. All of the people, world wide, that play with their cars to make them lower, faster, louder, than everyone else show up to Vegas for a week with their cars that are lower, faster, and louder. This takes the traffic of Las Vegas (which is already congested and infamously slow moving) and adds another 100,000 cars into the mix.
Roads that you thought were once the native Vegan's secret back roads that no one ever used or knew about become parking lots. That amazing short cut across town using streets like Sahara or Charleston (as long as the underpass isn't flooded, try as hard as they want, any time it rains that underpass is going to flood, someone is going to boat their car, and it's going to show up on the news) become useless, and the freeway takes just about as long.
I don't care how fancy your car is, or how rich you are, on a free way when the speed limit is 65, you shouldn't think that it's okay to drive 45 mph because you want to show off. I don't care. I have to get somewhere, and your fancy car that costs more than my life isn't helping me get there.
The worst part about Las Vegas conventions is that there's always one, and people are always there. This isn't a bad thing because of the traffic or whatever else, it's bad because if you see someone and try to talk to them they'll tell you that they're in town for "the" convention and you have to sit there and look stupid for not being aware that there is a convention for the US Table Tennis Championships that weekend. Just because I live in Vegas, doesn't mean that I know every single thing that is happening, and there surely is no way that I'm aware of every single convention that half a dozen people have shown up to.The people that come to conventions think that they're the only ones in the town, and that the entire reason that my home exists is because they were coming in to see the latest and greatest about
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