Nocturnalist at the Super Bowl | An Extraordinary Hassle for an Extraordinary Party

Shunted by a police detail into a scrum of people on the corner of Morton Street and the West Side Highway at 9:30 on Saturday night, we realized that we were headed to no ordinary party.

As we made our way with the hordes to DirecTV’s Super Bowl extravaganza, a virtual megalopolis built for the night in a gargantuan tent beside the Hudson River, we also experienced no ordinary hassle. There were checkpoints after checkpoints, labyrinthine rope lines to navigate, metal detectors to duck under and pat downs to undergo. Even the red carpet was a trap: It had no outlet, so celebrities â€" a bevy of beautiful swimsuit models â€" had to march down it for the requisite photograph, wheel around and head back out.

The payoff after running that gantlet was major.

Inside it was Ibiza by the Hudson. Female dancers on podiums shimmied to bouncing beats. Tables were laid with finger food redolent of truffles, and crystal chandeliers shaped like enormous Portuguese man-of-wars dangled from the tent eaves, bathed in red and blue flashing lights. Nocturnalist breathed a sigh of relief. We were in, and it was magic.

Not quite. Above us was a platform, a V.I.P. lounge in the sky. There partied our quarry: celebrities with which to spar. We headed up. We were stopped. We found an event publicist to shepherd our way. We were stopped. We found another who doled out wristbands that provided access. We were stopped. (The wristbands were blue. We needed, the umpteenth burly security guard said, green.)

Forty-five minutes of feeling like a pariah later, at last bedecked with a slim green wristlet, we mounted the stairs to the celebrity lounge. There was Jamie Foxx! At last we could do our job.

“Hello, Mr. Foxx!” we said, slipping our recorder out. We’re not sure (the music was loud) but as he whipped away, his response may have been, “Oh, no.”

We were deflated, especially as just the day before Nocturnalist had experienced our most pleasant celebrity encounters of all time at the Shape and Men’s Fitness Magazine party: Ice-T had hugged us, and the Platonic Ideal of maleness, the model Tyson Beckford, had smooched our cheek.

Suspended in the V.I.P. rafters, we started down the stairs; we didn’t feel so high.

And then. It happened. “Hello!” said a dapper man in a white tuxedo jacket with a shiny black lapel. “Mr. Beckford,” Nocturnalist stammered. It was hard to breathe, let alone muster an interview question. He grabbed our hand. He kissed it.

Once again, everything was O.K.

The party sparkled. The dancers gyrated. And Jay Z took the stage. He berated the audience of corporate guests and friends. “This is a rock show,” the rapper screamed at the stiff crowd, “not a board meeting!” And soon it was: Grabbing a man from the audience, he instructed him to empty his pockets and take off his suit jacket. “You’re going to crowd surf,” he said. “Go!” The audience lifted the elated man up. (Ever the corporate party, he made it about 15 feet before he was dropped to the ground.)

A frisson of excitement zipped through the crowd. Beyoncé joined Jay Z on stage, to perform a duet of her hit “Drunk in Love.”

It was the last party Nocturnalist would cover in our return to the nightlife scene after a hiatus of nearly two years. “In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of. There’s nothing you can’t do,” Jay Z bellowed of the city where we were born. “These streets will make you feel brand new. Big lights will inspire you. Hear it for New York, New York, New York.”

Amen.