It was a week of surprising cold in Nevada; 45 miles north of Las Vegas there was an avalanche, and snow was rumored to have drifted through the legendary strip. There was no shortage of heat indoors, however, as the adult industry descended upon the city that has made its fortunes on sin for the annual Internext Expo, AVN Adult Entertainment Expo and annual AVN Awards Show.
The two shows both center on the adult entertainment industry, and you know what that means: porn, porn, porn. YAY! While Internext is more business oriented, AVN is definitely all about the sizzle. This is the show that allows the fans to get close to their favorite adult stars, and wow, was it ever a madhouse. For the first time, the events were held in separate locations, with the Internext Expo in the lavish Mandalay Bay and the AVN Expo and Awards, as in previous years, at the sumptuous Venetian.
While the theme of these two shows definitely was on the tech side of sex, you'll probably be surprised to hear that it was held in the same venue at the same time as some of the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) events. Imagine going to a Sony or Sanyo demo and having to walk down the hall with scantily clad women in seven-inch platform heels and enough silicone to make several hundred dildos. It's a beautiful thing, I tell you: the mouths of the business suits that hung open in astonishment kept me laughing for days. Oh yeah, you know people were flaunting it even more just for that reason.
One thing you should remember is that Las Vegas is a town for partying, and these shows are a great excuse to get away and do some of that partying. There were events every night with the stars of the industry, wild happenings, mainstream star sightings, and just a hot time on the Strip with those who are best after they're stripped. Vegas nights can eat you up and spit you out, and they did for those who descended on the city for these shows.
Internext
Internext, between January 4-6, is for business-to-business within the adult industry. At this show, aside from the many seminars, you can find affiliate programs, billing solutions, cutting edge technology, adult material distributors, content providers, online toy store affiliations and more. It's not just for the big guys - there are many smaller one-off companies that find their growth solutions, ideas and innovations at these shows.
The discussions are also a wonderful way for smaller companies to become aware of some of the pitfalls of the industry, legal issues they should watch out for, and what concerns should top their list as they either enter the industry or delve deeper and grow. A sampling of the seminars given is Affiliate Programs and "Friendly Networks": Understanding How to Make Money; Content: Where to Buy it, How to Shoot it, Reselling, Licensing, And Niches; Alternative Billing: What's Working Now and What's Coming Up Next; and Branded: Consumer-Centric Marketing.
The legal aspects of the industry were addressed in a Legal Update on each day, with topics like 2257, COPA, Patents and Protecting Yourself, Build an Adult Company the Smart Way, and Reasons Why Adult Companies Get Sued. According to Internext's own research, 89% of the expo attendees in 2004 found that the seminars were a "fundamental part" of their convention experience. If one truly wanted to get started in the internet adult business, this would be the place to find your beginning.
But not only informative discussions - oh no: there is also smut and sex. Wheee! Yes, Internext is a great place for adult webmasters to network and find content. What better way to promote your product than to have scantily clad women parade around with your logo strategically placed over parts of their voluptuous and delicious anatomy? And there were some incredible anatomies walking around, believe me…
Red Room Media features Eros-Zine Sexy Spread gal Masuimi Max, and we've gotta tell you, this woman is just as screamin' hot in person as she is in her photos. Gorgeous gay boys strutted their perfect pecs (and other various bits) around the show floor, leaving many a straight gal wishing she had a penis - just for a moment. Cybernet Entertainment (www.cybernetentertainment.com) had some of their past models over to help spread out the literature…like Kylie Wilde from the legendary fuckingmachines.com. (I grabbed two of her pictures. Rooooowwwr.)
And I admit, it was fun to walk around, grab the SWAG, see if there was anyone with whom I could do business, stare at gorgeous gams and protruding packages and listen to the legal updates. B2B is not really a market where I can do much but try to listen and share what I've learned with the readers…Later.
Cause then it was time to head over to the AEE at the Sands Expo Center in the Venetian, where we had chosen to stay. I like the hotel; it's one of my favorite places to stay in Vegas, and having the expo in the same hotel was a boon. On the first day, I woke up, strapped myself into my corset and prepared to meet all the porn stars...
AVN Adult Entertainment Expo
Let me just mention that the AVN show is enormous. I mean, really huge. I knew there was a large adult industry out there, but this was beyond my expectations. Niche markets galore, fetish markets, gay markets, and every other interesting angle you can imagine, were all displaying and promoting at this expo.
If you want to see what the current trends are in the adult industry from a business angle, you should attend the AVN show during trade hours, and this year was the first to offer an entire day of no fans, just trade. This allowed distributors, journalists, and various business contacts to make important connections without having to deal with the craziness that the fans add to the mix at the show. Not that there's anything wrong with fans, of course.
Hustler had their enormous booth/showcase, as did Wicked, Adam and Eve, Digital Playground, and others. Bang Productions, California Exotic Novelties (yay, toys!) Dragon Novelties, Flashpoint Productions and a slew of others jammed the floor at the show. I enjoyed the different layout this year, as well: a cordoned-off B2B Marketplace, a GayVN showplace, and then the huge expanse of adult booths.
If there's a new toy, it's highlighted here. If there's a new starlet, look to find her here. If there's a new video line being hyped, you'll catch it here. A new angle, and new fetish, a new book, a new anything, this is the place to roll out your new stuff. And when the fans make it in the door on day two - watch out!
Send in the fans!
The noise level is instantly maximized by a power of ten. The lines of hot and horny men and women are incredibly long, but everyone is eager to make it through the door. The actors, producers, distributors, vendors - everyone is ready for the initial breaking of the cherry and the dam rush. BAM! Here they come…
With the addition of fans to the area, everything becomes more chaotic, but this is half the fun of the AVN show. They jam the floor, block traffic as they stop and stare in front of their favorite face (and other various body parts) from their favorite film (video, DVD, etc), and generally enjoy themselves with a gusto that verges on a feeding-frenzy.
The line in front of Jenna Jameson's booth went completely down an aisle. Carmen Luvana and crew at Adam & Eve had their own lines to deal with, as the petite blonde signed her name and posed for photos in her tiny outfits. Jesse Jane was on hand, as well as Teagan Presley. My man Seymore Butts was in the house (oooooh!!), Ron Jeremy was on hand (as if he would miss this one), Kurt Lockwood and his drool-worthy body was signing photos, as was Lee Stone, and our very own Buck Angel in his hot shape and growlin' tattoos.
With this kind of a line-up, you can't expect that there won't be "Hollywood" stars who want in on the action as well - Jesse Jane told me Samuel Jackson was in town, as well as a few other mainstream notables, like Gene Simmons of KISS, Penn of Penn and Teller (who have a current Vegas show), and even Lemmy of Motorhead (Rock on, man!). Larry Flynt was there to give out his John Hand-cock. There were even more, but I got dizzy from craning my neck around all the time.
And boobs - everywhere! You get drunk on them all. The gay-boys were incredibly gorgeous, whether in uniform (mmmm) or just in jeans and little else with bodies that made my brain swirl. Chi Chi LaRue was on hand mixing up the music one day, hawking DVDs another (and I love Chi Chi's look, I must say). Women were making out with each other all over the place (as were men). There were hard bodies in skimpy outfits and everyone simply oooooooozed sex.
Can you imagine? Now imagine adding thousands of horny male fans with cameras into the scene. And these guys think every woman there is some kind of star - even me! They are hot, ready to go and so a display from sultry babes in a booth is sure to bring the screams, hoots hollers and wolf-whistles of appreciation from these randy fans. One note: the addition of cell phone cameras must be a boon to the industry this weekend, for those who didn't carry a camera got their snaps with their cells.
There's also an awards show, kind of the Academy Awards of Porn, which happens during the expo, and our own Editrix Abby covered that event for you. Seymore Butts made it into the hall of fame, as did many more…but I'll let her tell you about it.
This show is such fun to cover - it gives me great ideas about things that you (my readers) will enjoy, what you're probably watching, and who you want to hear about. It also gives me a heads up on the new toys out there and what will be even newer in the next year. I loved being at the show and mistaken for an adult actress. Let's admit it: what woman doesn't want to be thought of as a porn star? It made me hot!
And it will make you wet and hard as you keep reading. We will have lots of write-ups about the shows, the parties, who we saw, what DVDs were advertised, who we met and what toys and other fun things we found for you in the "cumming" editions. Keep your eye here for interviews with Jesse Jane, Teagan Presley, and tons more. Eros brings you all things erotic!
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