The second adult convention since the pandemic started, this year was the busiest Miami show I’ve attended. Not the crowded madhouse that Chicago was, but a steady stream of attendees kept the performers busy especially in the evening hours. There were very little mask-wearing attendees or wristbands denoting their vaccination status. Kenzie Reeves was the only performer I saw who consistently wore a mask.
Hime Marie
Jade Baker
19Honeysuckle & Tom Christian
The front of convention hall were dominated space-wise by the webcam companies, Chaturbate and MyFreeCams. I saw 3X AVN Favorite Cam Couple, 19Honeysuckle and Tom Christian, and popular performers like Hime Marie and Jade Baker webcamming. I even saw Sabina Rouge several times webcamming without recognising her. Being that this was Miami, there were a lot of beauties walking around, and I didn’t approach many of them because my reluctance to photograph non-industry people out of respect for their privacy. I missed out on meeting a lot of east coast talent as a result.
Violet Myers
Taylor Blake
Alex Coal
Even though there were many attendees, I couldn’t pinpoint which performer had the busiest lines between Kenzie Reeves and Violet Myers. I think the crowd love was just spread out, and I think they were most likely to be enjoying the stage shows. I was pleased to see my friends, Taylor Blake and Alex Coal, again and having a grand time. Taylor was bouncing around from booth to booth while Alex was doing the chicken dance in an appropriate onesie. Onward to New Jersey, the home of IAFD and the next Exxxotica.
The first convention since the pandemic started, Exxxotica Chicago was a madhouse this past weekend. Tons of pent up energy in the air, a rampant amount of people that attended combined with less exhibiting talent made the event less casual than in previous years and more hectic like an AVN expo.
Mask wearing and social distancing were almost virtually nil, and I doubt the attendees were all vaccinated. Chaturbate was the only booth that took precautions with plastic screens separating the cam models and public. Exxxotica provided wristbands for those who could prove their vaccination, but the talent did not discriminate against greeting those that didn’t have wristbands. So I did not understand the point unless it was an insurance or local requirement. Even though I wore a mask when I could, I realised it was impossible to have a conversation with the performers without their being able to also read lips due to the noise.
Vicki Chase
Alex Coal
April O’Neil
Seeing many performers like Vicki Chase, Alex Coal, and April O’Neil again was a pleasure. Violet Myers easily had the longest lines at the convention and made me curious whether the fans lined up because of her obvious looks, her scenes, or some other online notoriety since I was not familiar with her performances. Some performers like Cadey Mercury, Madi Collins, and Jade Baker were at the webcam booths while others like Kaitlyn Katsaros were just walking around and visiting. Fiona Frost was even one of the Exxxotica Hotties, go-go dancers for the con.
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.
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.
Abella Danger
Adriana Chechik
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.
Riley Reid
Angela White
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.
Charlotte Stokely
Gianna Dior
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.
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 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 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.
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.
