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.

AVN 2019

IAFD is back and somewhat rested from the always grueling experience of AVN week. I commented last year that I didn’t know how people could work a convention, party the entire night, rinse, and wake up the next day to repeat the cycle, but I managed to do it this year without any pharmaceutical help because I was much more selective on who I wanted to photograph, where I wanted to go, and who I wanted to hang out with rather than try to do and cover everything.

The Expo

The expo itself was slightly smaller this year with less booths and what seemed like less attendees from previous years. It still hummed though. One positive but controversial change was that people were not able to bring in “professional” (DSLR and mirrorless) cameras unless they had an industry badge. Although unevenly enforced, this led to many less idiots holding up traffic flow by parking their asses somewhere and trying to get some upskirt shot. Another weird change was the use of metal detectors since everyone and their equipment/phones were setting them off which sometimes led to a followup hand wanding. I’m not sure what the point of that was since it falls below TSA protocols and the news had made it clear that TSA screening was not foolproof in preventing weapons going through.

Angela White

If you asked me who had the best booth at the show, I would semi-seriously answer whichever booth Angela White was signing at. She did quadruple duty signing for Evil Angel, Greg Lanksy‘s Tushy/Vixen/Blacked, Jules Jordan, and AVN itself and was accessible to her fans throughout the show even though she had the longest lines in the show. However, to be more serious, the best booth was Jules Jordan Video because of the quality of their signing lineup and how accessible they were presented to the fans. Abella Danger and Gina Valentina had long lines for them also, but the lines kept moving because the two kept plugging away at it. As Abella noted:

…trying to not look like dead😂 4 days in a row of standing for 5 hours straight doesn’t seem like much but i’m so used to being on my back

I was also sheepishly keeping Jill Kassidy warm in a perpetual hug throughout the week while her lines looked on.

Abella Danger Jill Kassidy Gina Valentina

Lansky’s booth was a work in progress through the week. Due to its location next to two other busy booths and elevated height, the great lineup they had was not as accessible to the fans. On the first day of the expo, you had to go through one line if you wanted to see any of the girls, and there was no guarantee that they would be there once you get to their signing area. There was a bar and photobooth inside the booth, and several girls utilised both heavily and were more busy participating in group activities meant to draw the crowds rather than actually engaging the fans. Entry into the booth itself was limited to VIPs, and I was denied entry by the bouncer even after presenting the designated VIP card, heh. You definitely are getting the velvet rope experience. Thankfully, they scrapped the one line rule by the second day, but the crowds overwhelmed any semblance of signing lines. By the last day, the girls that were there concentrated more on signing so someone is listening to fan feedback.

The golden couch

As in previous years, swaths of square footage was devoted to cam, clips and other self-production companies. MyFreeCams (MFC), the major sponsor of the show, had three large booths to accommodate all of their camgirls and threw exclusive parties for them each night. The positive is that you see all types of women with them, but the negative is that they are interacting more with their laptops and each other than with the public. Many also had groupies of regulars that constantly stay with them the entire convention. At some point you have to wonder why MFC bothers spending so much money here when they could easily just have their own exclusive event to take care of their members.

The rest of the expo photos on Flickr

The Nightlife

Most networking was done off site. I saw many performers walking about and socialising at the host casino that I didn’t see at the expo. With beers in hand on the casino floor, I caught up with many friends in the industry and ended up crashing several parties because of them; with the appropriate wristbands of course. I did not have the burden of bringing my camera with me thanks to my Google Pixel.

Out and About on Flickr

I did not attend or work the AVN Awards for the second year in a row. Being away from the bustle of the red carpet made me happier than being morbid. IAFD couldn’t procure tickets in time to go support our friends either.

Angela White Charlotte Stokely

Congratulations to Angela White who won 10 awards including repeating as Female Performer of the Year. This was the second year that IAFD voted in the Awards, and the list of winners were mostly consistent with the ballots of judges that we polled and ours. As I joked with Angela, “Who knew that voting actually worked?” Congratulations also to Charlotte Stokely for winning G/G Performer of the Year, acknowledging what I believe she earned years ago.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Mark Spiegler, Ivan, Shawn of AGW, and Sascha Koch for hosting us on various shindigs. Shoutout to my boys from IAFD & ADT, Swine, and Sammy.

Lily Labeau Kendra Spade Mackenzie Moss Verronica Kirei Haighlee Dallas Destiny Lovee Celeste

Thank you to Lily Labeau, Kendra Spade, Mackenzie Moss, Verronica Kirai, Haighlee Dallas, Destiny Lovee, and Celeste for making magic with me.