LAS VEGAS — Every January, the faithful leave their families, endure the airport and arrive in the desert to seek the one true answer: what will be announced next. Attendance is not required. Attendance is also not optional.

The pilgrimage begins with the ritual of the badge line, a forty-minute act of penance after which each believer is granted a lanyard and a QR code that will not scan. Elders who have made the journey twelve times move through the halls with the calm of people who know where the clean restrooms are.

In the Central Hall, worshippers gathered before a wall of screens three stories tall. A hush fell. A keynote prophet in a quarter-zip stepped into a single spotlight and spoke of a coming age in which the refrigerator will know you. Several attendees wept. One later admitted he simply had not eaten since Tuesday.

Doctrine remained mysterious. Every booth promised AI. No booth could explain what the AI did. A smart toothbrush was blessed as 'ecosystem-ready.' A robot dog performed a miracle by walking four feet before being carried offstage by a man in a headset.

Exhibitors served as the clergy, standing for nine hours on padding the thickness of a communion wafer, repeating the liturgy — 'Have you heard about our platform?' — to anyone who slowed down. Converts were marked with a badge scan and promised a follow-up that will arrive in March, when no one remembers them.

Relics were distributed freely: branded phone chargers, foam stress balls, and a single coveted tote that pilgrims carried home like a fragment of the true cross. 'I don't know what the company does,' said one believer, holding it to the light. 'But I believe.'

By Thursday the faithful had reached the traditional state of transcendence, achieved through four hours of sleep, nineteen thousand steps and a $26 turkey sandwich. On the flight home, many reported a profound spiritual emptiness, which experts confirm is just the feeling of having seen the future and realizing it ships in Q4.

Organizers have already announced next year's dates. Registration opens now. The faithful will return. They always return.