AVN 2020

Two weeks along with a bout of the AVN flu have passed and I still feel fatigue from thinking about the show. Must be because of all the “lived experiences” that happened in the frenzy of that week.

Adult Entertainment Expo

Photos on Flickr

In reviewing my photos, I can see the mortality of continuing to cover the show. I took much less photos this year, not because the show was smaller (it was only slightly smaller than last year). I had broken my foot in September, and it started swelling again during the show. I was content to have longer conversations with my friends and then allowed random people to stop me from doing what I did best which is take more photos. I even had an assistant for the first time which unintentionally slowed things since everyone tried to flirt with him. This, in turn, led me to see less of my industry friends overall.

The most popular people signing were Angela White, Riley Reid, Abella Danger, and Adriana Chechik. I don’t like cutting in line, but I did for the first three because they agreed to it beforehand while the logistics of doing so with Adriana due to the placement of the Evil Angel booth was impossible. If I were to line up to see all of them in a day, it would take a combined 2-4 hours of waiting to see them. They are popular not just for what they do on the screen, but how they interact with the fans. Riley absolutely crushed it by signing for her own booth from opening to closing every day despite a bout of food poisoning on the second day.

Jules Jordan had the best booth overall in terms of talent and access. Angela had her lines there. The Evil Angel – Manyvids corridor was the most frustrating since it wasn’t navigable whenever Adriana was signing. Having the Manyvids women elevated inside their booths made them inaccessible in general.

AVN Awards

I attended the AVN Awards for the first time in four years. It felt weird going this time as a guest without my camera, but it was fun to catch up with friends that I didn’t talk as much to on the convention floor. There weren’t too many surprises with the winners since I knew many of the voters. Even though we didn’t practice groupthink, there seemed to be a consensus around specific winners in polling the voters.

Congratulations to Angela for winning Female Performer of the Year for the third straight time and to Charlotte Stokely for repeating as G/G Performer of the Year. Congrats also go to Gianna Dior for winning Best New Starlet.

About Ginger Banks

I used to spend a lot of time on camsites. So when I first met Ginger Banks nearly five years ago in Dallas, I knew her as the girl who cammed from her university library. I’m not sure exactly how we hit it off, but I found her to be more mature and adept at engaging people than the typical camgirl I meet at cons. The years go by, and Ginger became more prominent advocating on issues pertaining to the adult industry. If you have read an article about performer rights or mental health in the past three years, Ginger is likely to be quoted. Why do I bring this up?

Because I photographed her before the con! She was a riot. If you would like to see more of the photoset including the naughty, it’s probably on her onlyfans.

Acknowledgements

I would like to give a shoutout to my boys at IAFD, ADT, and XCritic. I’d also like to thank Mark Spiegler, Miles Long, and Evil Angel for their hospitality that week.

Thank you to Ginger, Paige Owens, Kira Noir, and Jocelyn Sweets for making magic with me.

Our Picks for the 2020 AVN Awards

AVN voting is a horrible process to go through which may be surprising to the casual fan. You can’t just pick your favourites to watch and vote from there, you basically have to watch everything to be at least fair to the nominees since AVN and most other awards I know of use a ranking system to voting.

Watching this much porn makes me want to claw my eyes out. I use a hybrid clinical approach in judging the technical aspects in the production and director categories and an overall feel for the scene and performer categories. When I mean feel, I don’t mean touch myself because porn reviewing is like wine tasting. Not only are there not enough hours in the day, can you properly assess the next item if you already blew your load? This is the reverse There’s Something About Mary dilemma!

With that said, for the sake of transparency, here are some of our picks for the 2020 AVN Awards:

Movies

Best Action/ Thriller: Derelict, Kink/Digital Sin
Best Comedy: Babysitter Auditions 2, BurningAngel/Exile
Best Drama: Adelaide, MissaX
Best Parody: The Gang Makes a Porno: A DP XXX Parody, Digital Playground/Pulse
Best Romance: Holding Out & Giving In, Bellesa/Mile High
Best Star Showcase: Angela White: Dark Side, Jules Jordan Video

Joanna Angel and company (Burning Angel) make underrated comedy. Angel has been called the Sarah Silverman of porn, but the problem was I didn’t like Sarah’s neurotic comedy. I didn’t get Angel’s deprecating goofy hipster (ALT!) comedy when she first arrived on the scene, but 15 years go by, and the irreverent satire now seems smart and relevant.

Directing

Best Director – Comedic Production: The Gang Makes a Porno: A DP XXX Parody, Digital Playground/Pulse; Vic Lagina
Best Director – Dramatic Production: Drive, Deeper/Pulse; Kayden Kross
Best Director – Foreign Production: Rebecca, An Indecent Story, Marc Dorcel/Wicked; Alis Locanta
Best Director – Gonzo/Anthology Production: Angela Loves Women 5, AGW Entertainment; Angela White
Best Director – Web Channel/Site: Miles Long, BangBros.com
Director of the Year: Manuel Ferrara

Director of the Year was a toss-up between husband/wife, Manuel and Kayden, the latter picked for Dramatic Production. I just preferred Manu’s RAWer body of work.

If it wasn’t for these award nominations, you would never know many of the directors behind some of the most popular web channels since they don’t go out of the way to promote the directors of their particular scenes. I appreciate Miles Long’s technical proficiency at Bangbros, and he understands the heat of the action without being glossy or abstract.

[Miles also goes out of his way to keep us in the loop of what he’s produced and released. We would love to see more producer/directors credited for their web content. We are curious to the reasoning behind leaving these credits out. – Jeff]

Acting

Best Actor – Featurette: Nathan Bronson, Dibs on Mom, Pure Taboo/AdultTime.com
Best Actress – Featurette: Joanna Angel, Maid of Honor (Dysfunctional Marriage | DVD), Pure Taboo/Pulse
Best Leading Actor: Danny D., Uninvited, Digital Playground/Pulse
Best Leading Actress: 4 way tie between Lacy Lennon, Kristen Scott, Angela White, and Whitney Wright
Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Pistol, The Gang Makes a Porno: A DP XXX Parody, Digital Playground/Pulse
Best Supporting Actress: Nina Hartley, Confessions of a Sinful Nun 2: The Rise of Sister Mona, Sweetheart/Mile High

I think there is some irony that the two best actors in porn, Tommy & Nina, were our picks for best supporting actor and actress. We couldn’t find consensus for Best Leading Actress.

Performing

All-Girl Performer of the Year: Charlotte Stokely
Best Male Newcomer: Alex Jett
Best New Foreign Starlet: Jia Lissa
Best New Starlet: Gianna Dior
Female Foreign Performer of the Year: Anna de Ville
Female Performer of the Year: Angela White
Male Foreign Performer of the Year: Danny D.
Male Performer of the Year: Manuel Ferrara
MILF Performer of the Year: Tie between Cherie DeVille & India Summer
Niche Performer of the Year: Lance Hart
Transgender Performer of the Year: Natalie Mars

Speaking of irony, we chose an American in Anna de Ville as the best “foreign” female performer because she is indeed the best performer outside the United States. We also chose Lance Hart as niche performer of the year, because he does everything and then goes home to (service) a loving wife in Charlotte Sartre.

We picked Gianna Dior out of a competitive field for Best New Starlet just like she would always pick Auburn over Alabama in the Iron Bowl. I believe she would represent the industry well in years to come.

You would think we were Warren Buffet, with tried and true picks like Stokely, Ferrara, and White to repeat as performers of the year. I just like their experience and professionality in putting forth a great scene in such a volatile industry and world today.

Exxxotica New Jersey 2019

The New Jersey show is the capstone of Exxxotica’s annual tour throughout the country. The largest and busiest show in terms of square footage and attendance, you definitely would be waiting in line at various moments in the show for your favourite performers. Friday was the most packed with the Ladies Free promotion while Saturday was steadily busy even with the extended hours of the show.

Abella Danger
Abella Danger at the Brazzers booth

Abella Danger and her Brazzers booth had the longest lines at the show. Abella’s line wrapped around the entire booth while she greeted every fan making them feel like they had reached the pot at the end of the rainbow. She even had to call me on my cell phone so that I could snap her photos while she would take a mini-break from the line. Teanna Trump probably had the second longest lines in the show in that I was only able to photograph her on the quieter Sunday.

Teanna Trump
Teanna Trump for FanCentro

New Jersey is also the only location where Exxxotica hosts its afterparties at the site hotel. They had fun house bands playing mostly eighties and nineties covers and the stars were more easily accessible in that you didn’t have to wait in a line to mingle with them. There was a roped off section in case the stars needed to hide but for the most part everyone was flittering around the ballroom engaging their fans in selfies and such. I mostly hung out with Vicki Chase, who is my closest friend in the industry. She humoured me while I was focusing on the World Series.

Vicki Chase
Vicki Chase at the Sapphire booth

For the rest of the photos

Exxxotica Miami 2019

Exxxotica returned to Miami for its 40th show overall; Miami being where it all started. There was some concern the week prior to the show that Hurricane Dorian would leave a wreckage. The area was spared though, and the show enjoyed increased attendance from last year, especially on ladies free Friday.

Kenzie Reeves knows her angles

Bad Dragon, Chaturbate, MyFreeCams, and Clips4Sale had the biggest booths while Alexis Texas‘s Team TexASS had the busiest booth. In what seems to be a pattern recently, the talent at the Chaturbate booth was better and more consistent than their competitor, MFC.

Vicki Chase at the Gold Rush

While there was no nudity allowed at the show, the after-parties filled the skin gap since they were all at strip clubs. I visited Vicki Chase and Karma RX feature dancing at the Gold Rush where everyone seemed to have fun.

For the rest of the photos on Flickr…

Exxxotica Portland 2019

After skipping the Chicago show much to my later regret, I decided to visit Portland for Exxxotica‘s initial foray into the Northwest region. The Rose City is a beautiful city with a vibrant nightlife, and I was looking forward to revisiting the sights and sites.

The Exxxotica show itself went at a slow and steady pace throughout the weekend due to measured attendance. Compared to AVN’s AEE, you get plenty of opportunities to have a discussion with your favourite stars over semi-serious matters in their lives or what holes they like getting plugged in depending on your taste in conversation. The stage shows were popular with the crowds, and Tone Loc was the feature entertainer on Saturday night.

As for the nightlife, I saw Vicki Chase and Kenzie Taylor feature dance at a small club in Portland. Ember Snow made a guest appearance on stage with Vicki. I also went to Kendra Sunderland‘s 24th birthday party in downtown. It was a fun party, the first industry party I went to that didn’t feel like an industry party in how laid back it was. There were areas that people could dance or have conversations. Even though Kendra was in a VIP section, she was accessible to whoever wanted to greet her and take a photo with her using a photobooth.

Kendra Sunderland 24th birthday party
Happy birthday, unicorn princess!

For the rest of the photos…