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Exxxotica Miami 2024

Three weeks and one hurricane later, I should just give an abbreviated summary of the most senior Exxxotica show in Miami. The Miami show gives me an opportunity to meet some of the newer talent that are based in Florida. The show is easy to access in the sense that it’s near the airport and the convention center is next to the host hotel. The crowds are not too heavy, and the food in the surrounding area is excellent.

Suck and Blow, a stage game by James Bartholet

I didn’t see any signing talent with huge lines but that may be because of the constant entertainment at the main stage where crowds gather. I also saw Florida-based talent randomly walking around the show like Kelsi Monroe, Leana Lovings, and Daisy Lavoy.

Rest of convention photos

As for the off-hours, I didn’t stray too far away from the hotel with Mr. Blue Lou Boyle. Even though I kept getting invited to the after-parties by my feature dance friends with incentives of free alcohol, I was just too beaten to hang out at strip clubs.

Oh, and Rose Carter, thank you for being magical.

Exxxotica Chicago 2024

I really enjoy photographing Exxxoticas. They are just really laid back shows where you can meet and greet the performers for more than 5 minutes. Many of signing performers also enjoy doing the show, and they look forward to seeing their repeat attendees.

Violet Myers easily had the longest lines at the convention. People were lining up 2 hours before she started signing on Saturday. I’ve commented before that I didn’t know why or how she is so popular beyond being hot (and nice). I should poll people in line at the next show to confirm.

This year in Chicago was very busy, but the show retained its typical experience which extended outside the show hours. All four locations of Exxxotica feature after-parties, but the Chicago and New Jersey shows are the ones that have parties at the host hotel. There fans can greet some of the performers in a more casual setting.

Besides fans attending these conventions to meet their favourite performers, industry people attend to network and collaborate on shoots. With the popularity of self-production these days, you have performers from all over never needing to step foot in the production hubs of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, or Miami and instead meet at an Exxxotica.

Photo gallery on Flickr

AVN Expo 2024

It took a while, but I was distracted by personal life stuff. This year’s AVN Expo was smaller and cheaper than last year’s wallet shock of a show. Resorts World is still a very expensive venue when it comes to food and drinks, but moving the show off the same week as CES made it more affordable.

As such, most of the industry was staying at the host hotel rather than the backup hotel. The show itself was hosted in a smaller area with less exhibitors compared to last year. That was fine because I didn’t have to move around as much. Even though there was less attendance due to the lack of CES crossover, the crowd density remained the same. At some point, I was jostling in a river of crowd traffic with my camera banging against people including one person that was carrying a motorcycle helmet for some reason.

CC Doll, Aria Valencia, Sky Pierce, Rissa May, Harley Haze at Hookup Hotshots

The best booth at the show was a new one from Hookup Hotshots. The beautiful starlets signing there were accessible and there were backgrounds to shoot them against without a crowd. Angela White, Abella Danger, and Violet Myers had the longest lines at the convention, and Brazzers seemed to have the busiest booth.

I did not party too hard this year with all of the distractions and was more busy walking girls back to their room since there were so many predators out and about.

I stayed away from the awards red carpet and watched The Royal Rumble instead. Congratulations to the deserving Chanel Camryn for winning Best New Starlet though.

X3 2024

The third annual X3 show on January 17-18 in Hollywood was the most successful with attendance being at a max. There were no omicron fears to worry about as in the first year, and the weather mostly cooperated with the outdoor lines unlike less year.

Logistics for the show also changed. I noticed that only Hussie Models had an agency booth this year, and the lack of agency booths contributed to less talent signing. Less talent and more people made for some tight spaces. The stage presentations by exhibiting companies brought large crowds to the front, but also hampered the people that were signing in front of the stage. Fortunately, there were no distracting celebrity musical performances so people signed on until the end.

Brazzers had the busiest booth for the third year in a row, and Angela White again was the most popular signer at the show. Their security coordinated lines that did not impede the flow of traffic.

I liked how the organisers ran the show overall and made on-the-fly decisions to improve the flow of traffic. For example, many of the talent signing upstairs were brought downstairs to the perimeter on the second day to make them more noticeable and pull some of the traffic outwards.

Naked News crew — Cosplayground featuring Naked News

I did not attend the XBIZ Awards this year due to an emergency back home. I heard it went well, and there were no surprises. The red carpet photos looked dazzling.

Gallery on Flickr

Exxxotica DC 2023

Exxxotica returned to the DMV (DC-MD-VA) area for its third appearance. Even though this location is probably the smallest of the tour, the crowd was steady and happy to see their favourite performers. There was a good attendee-exhibitor ratio, and the crowds tended to congregate at the stage where multiple feature dancers performed like Christiana Cinn.

I did not see many performers that I did not recognise and mostly visited with the people that I knew. The smaller show allows you to have conversations without feeling a rush even if there is a line waiting. Outside of the stage, people mostly congregated near the webcam companies, Chaturbate & MFC, and the Spotlight booth sponsored by Loyalfans.

In terms of after-hours, I took it slow and forwent the after-parties that were mostly inside the District over 40 minutes away from the expo. I mostly stuck to bourbon tasting inadvertently.

The rest of the photos on Flickr