Another January Awards season has passed with the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo and AVN Awards returning to the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. Similar to the Hard Rock in 2013, the Virgin staff and security made some adjustments to hosting after several common complaints in the first year, and the expo ran more smoothly this year.
Adult Entertainment Expo
The Expo was divided into three rooms. One room had large booths featuring studios like Brazzers and Sex Like Real and platforms like Loyalfans and MyFreeCams. One focused mostly on adult novelty companies. The third and largest room had a mix of studios, platforms, talent agencies, and other random vendors. Brazzers had the largest booth with lines that you had to cut through just to navigate in that area. Angela White and Abella Danger had the longest lines of fans waiting at the convention.
Sabrina Bishop interviewed performers on the floor for IAFD, but random fans kept trying to get her attention and talk to her even though they did not know who she was. Sabrina is a great interviewer showing natural rapport with whoever she was talking to although there were a couple fangirl moments that surprised me.
The Nightlife
The best part about AVN week is meeting friends that you only really see on an annual basis, often in an informal setting like at a party. One person, Mia Rose, I hadn’t seen in 17 years.
Dorcel threw a great party to promote their movie, Strip. I was happy to see Riley Reid there after an absence of three years.
Photographers were being kicked out of the AVN White Party, but I was too busy drinking and recording Anna Claire Clouds‘s new boobs with my brain for anyone to complain about my camera.
AVN Awards
I had attended 6 or 7 AVN Awards in person mostly working behind the scenes. My first was in 2006 when I accompanied Ariana Jollee along with several other members of AdultDVDTalk down the red carpet at the Sands. Twenty years later, I had the privilege of the lovely Emma Sirus taking me to the Awards. The red carpet went smoothly for me as a guest compared to when I photographed it in 2023. The Awards production crew was surprised and delighted to see us. Everything was a blur, and Emma fed me ice cream afterwards.
Several performers came up to me and asked me where my camera was. Some even asked me when they could see their red carpet photos while the red carpet was still going. Maybe adrenaline caused these conversations to be on autopilot.
Right before the Awards started, people like to take their photos on stage. As I led Emma to the stage for a photo with her co-nominee, other people stopped me to ask me to take their photo for them with their phones. After I finished taking this photo for Olivia Jay, I tried to compose a shot for Emma. Realising that Olivia Jay was in the frame taking selfies, I asked Olivia to move slightly to her left. Olivia petulantly screamed at me that she was there first. When she was finished with her selfies, she walked by and bumped Emma for good measure in front of everybody else.
Can’t have an AVN week without some drama.
The Awards themselves started earlier than usual and ended reasonably before midnight. Wiz Khalifa threw an inspired set, and the winners were all deserving. An ad by Joi promoting AI elicited boos from the crowd, and its placement at an awards celebrating performers was curious.
On a Closing Note
After finishing up my 22nd AVN week, I don’t know how long I can keep doing this. AVN is the most grueling event on the adult industry calendar and is geared for the young or the young at heart. I am neither. Most of the pornorazzi that I knew when I first started are dead, and the ones that are still around are jaded or bat shit crazy in their resilience. Even though I have made adjustments to my approach, I am plenty jaded and my resilience is waning.
I have met thousands of people and made lifelong friends in and around the industry through these events. Many that I don’t view from a perspective of a fan so it always confuses me when people ask me for an introduction. I will miss them when I am done.
Like multiple winners at the AVN Awards, I would like to thank Mark & George for their hospitality the whole week, Dorcel for letting me crash an awesome party, and Sabrina for patiently keeping my short fuse in check with the idiotic attendees around. Shout out to my boys, Bono, Jeff, Danny, Shawn, Sammy, and Swine and my muse, Lily Labeau.
Thank you, Emma, for being one of the kindest people I know and being a great Awards date.
… and Summer, Sona, and Annaleigh, thank you for being magical.