Hikvision $250,000 Bar Tab

Given their current state, if Sony spent $250,000 on a partner event bar tab I would say it would be pretty significant. 

Because I don't drink, I could care less about the open bar. This was a few years ago when we were selling a lot of Hikvision and I wanted to go and meet people, learn more about the company and find out what was coming out soon. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't more meet and greet as it could have been. IMO there are better ways to help your clients and spend money no matter which manufacturer is spending the money.

I personally like DMP events. They are always very well organized, attended and provide a lot of good information not just about DMP products but about best practices in the alarm industry. All manufacturers could learn a few things from DMP. 

Is the $250k news or is Hikvision?

There are a number of interesting elements here:

(1) Hikvision is continuing these parties; Tao at ISC West 2017 and Union Station at ASIS 2017.

(2) Avigilon has stopped these parties for more than a year and gone into cost cutting mode. Sony does not even have its own booth anymore, forget about mega-parties. And Pelco did have mega-parties but those days, like the jet, are long, long gone.

(3) Hikvision average sales price is ~50% less than Avigilon, Sony or Pelco, which means a lot less sales dollars available to fund those parties.

...has any effect on staying loyal to to the company that presented the drinking event, simply because the drinking event was "awesome".

Maybe, but that would be rather shallow.  That's where booth babes come in. ;)

Logically the driver is always responsible for their own actions. But in civil court, feelings can override logic and anything can happen.

So far, I have not heard of that happening. With most of these being tied to conventions, when people tend to walk/Uber/taxi instead of drive themselves, hopefully we will not have to see your question play out.

I am not a lawyer, but from conversations with multiple bar owners:

It's illegal to serve an intoxicated person in many locales. And a civil case can accordingly be brought against the establishment which over-served. That happened in Pennsylvania a couple years ago and ended with a bar closing (which had a history of this, anyway).

In Nevada, though, it appears you can only sue the intoxicated individual, not the establishment. Which could explain why rampant public intoxication is so normalized out there. There are fewer consequences than other places.