Power failure plunges CES into darkness

A power outage brought a halt to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last night, plunging the tech expo into darkness for two hours.

Large swaths of the sprawling Las Vegas convention centre lost power at about 11:15am local time, including exhibitor booths and rooms used by journalists covering the event, reports The Guardian.

Companies affected by the outage included LG, Samsung and Sony, The Verge reports, along with tech start-up firms that “paid thousands of dollars to have a presence on the massive show floor”.

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The power cut was attributed to heavy rainfall earlier in the day, BBC News reports. An employee at the convention centre told the site that the downpour had affected cables delivering electricity to the show.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the downpour was the city’s first rainfall in 116 days, bringing an end to a “record-breaking dry spell”.

CES attendees posted images on social media of the blackout, with one sharing a video of a woman playing a violin to entertain guests at the Intel booth.