The second show in Chicago after the pandemic, the attendance was almost overwhelming as people ventured out in full force compared to last year’s antsy group. I didn’t see any mask wearing, and people treated any other precaution like spacing as an afterthought. There was a good balance of the genders, especially on Ladies Free Friday. I saw numerous fangirls excited to meet their stars compared to the usual creepy awkward or entitled obnoxious male attendees that you see at any porn convention.
Angela WhiteAbella DangerViolet Myers
The talent must have been happy as I saw steady lines waiting patiently, sometimes even hours when it came to the most popular stars like Angela White, Abella Danger, and Violet Myers who signed on tirelessly. Brazzers had the busiest booth at the show, and it was actually cool to see the support staff actively greeting attractive attendees that may become future stars for the website.
Lacy LennonVicki ChaseApril O’Neil
The convention would stay busy deep into the late hours on Friday and Saturday, and that became somewhat of a problem with the availability of food options. Not only that, the after-parties started around that time. I was smart enough to choose food rather than drinks but would visit the parties in their closing hour, only to be dragged into the after-after parties by my friends (thanks, Lacy) and strangers that seemed to recognise me somehow.
Hime MarieIvy MinxxxDemi Hawks
I mingled quite a bit with cam models like Hime Marie, Ivy Minxxx, and Demi Hawks from the Chaturbate booth. From hosting the parties, their staff, and even the layout of their booth, I found the booth much more accessible to the fans than their main competitor at the convention.
The XRCO Awards are Thursday night, so it seems the last minute to be posting the nominees list (and even more last minute for the upcoming 2021 Spank Bank Awards…)
They put together a video announcing the nominees, but we also compiled a list for easy persual.
I attended my first XBIZ show since their last fan event with the Summer Expo at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas in 2010. I don’t think this would have been possible if the pandemic had not happened. Over the last twelve years and prior to that, I had never attended their events because of several reasons:
I was not interested in the web business side of the industry. There is some irony here since I write for IAFD.com, but we’re not doing this for the money. I also defer the business networking to Jeff.
I don’t vote for the XBIZ Awards. I’m sure they exist, but I don’t personally know any voters outside of the people that work for XBIZ .
Since XBIZ week usually occurs before AVN week in January, I did not have the time or budget to do both.
Since 1 and 3 did not apply this year, I looked forward to going to the only in-person capstone events for 2022 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles.
X3
Given that it was my first XBIZ event in nearly twelve years and the pandemic, there were some logistical issues to figure out at the beginning like finding where media registration was, proving my vaccination status along with the exhibitors and talent, and then being redirected to wait in line with the fans while the expo opened 30 minutes late, presumably to give the exhibitors and talent time to set up. The registration and vaccination check people couldn’t be any nicer.
Alex Blake
Chloe Temple
19Honeysuckle
After being let inside, the Palladium is similar in size to The Joint at the Hard Rock. There were not that many company booths, but there were many performers at individual tables to sell their wares on the first and second floor of the theater. One of the weird things I noticed was that there was actually a lack of porn on display at the expo. There was a prohibition against nudity in all forms, so even the items performers were signing like 8x10s and DVDs were subject to that prohibition. There were also these booths that had these cool influencer backgrounds to photograph against like I’ve seen at popular bars and clubs. In terms of new performers since the pandemic, I enjoyed meeting Haley Spades, Kay Lovely, and Jazlyn Ray for the first time.
Haley Spades
Kay Lovely
Jazlyn Ray
The floor was busy at certain points and the most popular booth by far was Brazzers as lines hovered for Angela White, Phoenix Marie, and Lily Lou. Angela had the longest lines at X3, but thankfully took the time to pose for photos when I skipped her line. Phoenix complained she would never see me when her lines are bonkers while Lily’s lines grew over the two days when the fans saw how great she was.
Angela White
Phoenix Marie
Lily Lou
I don’t normally like to skip the lines since fans can wait up to an hour to meet their favourite performer, but it was agonising to watch enthralled fans talk for 15-30 minutes each sometimes about menial subjects, and then I take about 30 seconds to snap some photos and give my pleasantries. From a practical standpoint by waiting in line, I missed out on shooting many performers that were walking around or had short signing shifts. I also saw many fans being overly aggressive with the performers to their dismay, grabbing and touching their breasts, butts, and legs without asking for consent. The sale of alcohol on site did not help with that either.
While talking to the attendees, we discussed the impact of the pandemic and compared the measures that California had taken compared to the other states I had been through because of Exxxotica. I was disturbed to learn that people were cheating the mandatory vaccination requirements by forging their vaccination status, sometimes with the help of a shady health care provider. This also included members of the industry that did not want to be continually tested if they were unvaccinated just like it was happening with players in the major sports leagues. It makes me question how much of the breakthrough Omicron cases were actually breakthrough cases. XBIZ was heavily criticised for hosting these events given the recent surge, but we are all adults and should know the risks that we are taking. However, you must be fucking bonkers if you are willing to go to one of these things unvaccinated and are willing to cheat the system to do so.
Overall, this was still a fun fan expo that I would recommend people to attend in a non-pandemic environment. Two days is ideal in a setting like Los Angeles. People were excited with the finishing musical performances of Too Short on the first day and Busta Rhymes the second day. Busta had the more polished production of the two.
I hate doing red carpets. To clarify, I like being at the Awards themselves, meeting and greeting people that I know, and watching theirs reactions when the winners are announced, but I can’t document the behind the scenes with my camera since I don’t have the all access badge to do that. However, I decided to do a red carpet after an absence of 5 years because I had never done the XBIZ Awards before, wanted to demonstrate my work to a new audience and generation of performers, and figured the attendance would be lower due to the pandemic.
Ivan & Misha Montana
Emma Sirus
Kyle Mason & Hime Marie
The XBIZ staff ran the carpet professionally even though it was outside with our backs to Sunset Blvd. I did not have to worry about fans or vagrants behind me stealing my equipment due security protecting our space.
Red carpets are high stress environment for not only the people that walk it, but for the photographers behind the rope. We are all basically fighting for the same shots even though there can be a wide discrepancy in skill between us. Some are more distractingly vocal in their directions, and I wish they would shut the fuck up since the talent knew how to pose for the most part. Further since the photographers were spaced adequately, I don’t know why they were even trying to draw someone’s attention from me. Since I was near the end of the photographer line, some of the talent skipped me to go to the interviews, which leads me to my next point.
Wonder Bread Bros sandwich
Since my outlets, IAFD and AdultDVDTalk, generously give me all the time in the world to work on the photos; my social media and phone got barraged by industry people who wonder where their photos are this week. Some are people that I never photographed or people that would otherwise never give me the time of the day outside these things. How did they even get my number? Can’t they continue to confuse me with Jeff Koga or Gordon?
After the red carpet was done, logistics was again an issue because I could not bring my equipment inside the venue, and there was no place to store it. So I trudge 30lbs back to my hotel by foot and missed a portion of the Awards when I returned. I then found out that I couldn’t step foot into the industry area and join my date because we hadn’t gotten the proper wristbands as an industry +1 right after the carpet. If only we hadn’t been separated by logistics, but she eventually got me in.
Cam Model of the Year Lana del Bae
G/G Performer of the Year Kenna James
Female Performer of the Year Emily Willis
The XBIZ Awards were a clean and straight forward production. The winners were deserving and happy. All aspects of the industry were represented in an integrated manner. When the Awards was over, the venue made it a point to kick everyone out in a timely fashion.
The vultures, err I mean the pornorazzis, were hovering outside for the drunk, high, and horny members to behave in an immoral fashion for their cameras. Imagine my annoyance in trying to get my date into a Lyft to go back to our hotel, only for the vultures to follow us back.
Wow! We did it. We actually voted in every non-retail-pleasure category that we could vote for, and I have to thank my colleagues for pulling this off. It’s not like we did this in any organised manner like assigning categories so that everything would be covered. The most important thing was coming to a consensus since we had to rank every nominee in a given category.
I still think there are too many nominees in each category, but you have to keep everyone but the voters happy. Are there really more than 5 contenders in a given category that could or should win, and if there are, what does it say about about the indiscriminate evaluation or quality of what we are reviewing?
Each voter has their own criteria on how they judge the category. I generally defer to my colleagues in categories that I am clueless about or disinterested in. It would not be fair to the nominees if I tried to vote in every category, and it was crucial that we did have someone that knew their shit in specific categories. For example, Best Soundtrack: Would I listen to and enjoy this porn groove if it was outside a porno? The answer would frankly be no to every soundtrack that has ever been nominated. Same with Best Makeup: I appreciate the beauty that makeup brings when it is pertinent to the story, but most of the time the makeup I appreciate most is one where the viewer wouldn’t even notice.
Here is a sampling of our picks for the 2022 AVN Awards:
Like I mentioned last year, Jane Wilde is such a filthy performer, and Jonni Darkko, technically proficient cameraman and director, combine to make great showcases. Love, Sex, and Lawyers continues perhaps a series of movies by Will Ryder, unrelated except by title. This romantic comedy is lighthearted and funny, and I like watching Kenna James having sex.
Known mostly for his comedies and parodies, Will Ryder is a self-deprecating perfectionist or pessimist. His movies may not have the extensive budget of his competition, but Ryder writes the screenplays and squeezes every last take to get the shot that he wants for his vision, often to the exasperation of his production partner, Scott David.
Big surprise that Maitland Ward, with extensive mainstream acting experience, would be the best actor in porn today. It is obvious that she enjoys the amount of control in her scenes both in and out of the storyline.
The IAFD staff like buxom blondes like Blake Blossom and Britney Amber, but we also like lithe redheads like Lottie Magne so we don’t have a particular preference with looks in picking performers. Performance over the voting period does matter, and it’s not just clicking off the checkboxes of acts that you can see on our website. It’s whether they consistently put out great scenes even while their co-stars and productions constantly change.
Reviewing the myriad scene categories confirmed that Gia Derza is an incredible performer. Her beautiful eyes accentuates every blowjob that she gives, and she throws every hole into sexual abandonment while moaning and squeaking into ecstasy. That’s my best Don Juan de Marko impression that I can do because I’ve ran out of words to describe just how great it is to watch her on screen.
[NOTE FROM JEFF: If I had to change anything about the awards process, it would be the voting site we have to use. It’s a simple list of nominees on one side and we drag them in order to the other side to cast our vote. Simple enough task, but the source list is unsorted, so it’s harder than necessary to find Angela White’s name when it’s buried somewhere in the bottom third of the list instead of at the top where the A’s should be sorted. (I do concede that perhaps there’s a reason for the random ordering in the source list – random ordering might keep the list free from unconscious bias. By way of example, I had a client who named their company so it started with an AB so they’d be at the top of every list of sponsors they were listed in.)
We vote via spreadsheet and we average out our scores so a polarizing performer might end up in the middle of the pack instead of at either extreme. This year I didn’t watch nearly as much as I had in the past, so my role was mostly as tiebreaker – visiting those specific scenes/performers and then voting between those. The ties were almost exclusively middle-of-the-pack; I don’t think I had to break any win/place/show ties….]
Exxxotica makes its first appearance near the nation’s capital. The convention isn’t actually in the District of Columbia, but calling it Exxxotica Dulles or Exxxotica NoVa does not have quite the same marketing ring. Given the new area, I wasn’t sure if this show would be the smallest one after the pandemic, but it turned out not to be. In fact, it was very busy. With less exhibitors and more attendees than the show in Miami, there was a steady crowd every day drawing from the DMV population.
Mary Moody
19Honeysuckle & Tom Christian
Evangeline Darling
Having met and photographed many of the same exhibitors the past three post-pandemic Exxxoticas, I interacted more with the popular webcam performers this time around; especially Chaturbate. Even though the booth is sequestered behind individual plexiglass displays due to health concerns, the Chaturbate models were accessible going outside the booth and checking out rest of the convention. They were also accessible hanging out around the host hotel and after-parties. I met up with Mary Moody for the first time in nearly 2 years, and she asked if I was vaccinated before hugging me which made me realise that I wasn’t wearing the COVID yellow wristbands that I had worn in the previous Exxxotica. I hung out with AVN Favourite Webcam Couple, 19Honeysuckle and Tom Christian, at and after the parties and made pretty photos of Evangeline Darling during off hours.
Lilly Bell
Alex Coal
Vicki Chase
Since this seemed to be the first Exxxotica in December, I saw plenty of people wearing holiday-themed apparel like Lilly Bell and Fiona Frost. The lines to see the performers at the Bad Dragon booth were evenly distributed. Vicki Chase hosted one of the official Exxxotica after-parties while Alex Coal vacillated between being a go-go dancer and bouncer, wielding a baseball bat.
This had been a successful Exxxotica season for 2021. I didn’t know what to expect after a year of cancellations due to the pandemic. Here’s to an even better one for 2022.
