I want to play with this paint. Like, NOW.

Wow. hahaha...

Makes sense, though.

EL panel is as dangerous as a negative grounded chassis or touching two battery terminals with your hand. The load has somewhere else to go, so it doesn't follow you, even though it is A/C, opposed to a D/C terminal battery (as the example given for touching a D/C battery), the panel itself is not energized. They use EL panels for bar tops in clubs that are constantly wet. It's not a big deal.

My guess is that they are using a conductive coating on top of it and either spraying to bare metal, or using a conductive coating beneath it with it's own ground source being the outer layer.

EL panel has two conductive layers sandwiching the center, illuminated pigments.