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Exxxotica Chicago 2023

I feel like a broken record but Exxxotica continues to break its attendance records at every location since the pandemic. This year, especially on Friday, attendees were shoulder to shoulder as they navigate between booth to booth. Exxxotica producers noted that attendance had increased by 70-80% based on ticket sales. It doesn’t help that the number of exhibitors have stayed the same which explains the huge crowds congregating at some of the same spots especially the stage.

The longest lines at the convention belonged to Violet Myers and a returning Adriana Chechik. The audience seemed to know more about Violet and Adriana from their Twitch activities than their porn, which is something that I am completely out of touch with. I waited over two hours in line for Adriana because I was concerned that she wouldn’t remember me; only for me to later remember that she liked Asians and can discern me from being an Alvin look-alike.

The spotlight performers were now sponsored by Loyalfans instead of Bad Dragon but you saw the usual popular performers. April O’Neil continued to raffle dinner dates with her fans while Vicki Chase had an array of cute wardrobe changes.

I mostly hung out at the Chaturbate booth because there was always something going on with all of their cam people. Chaturbate couples Eva Darling & Justin Case and Dani Bone & Steve Bone even hosted me with food and booze after-hours.

I hung out with Spencer Bradley for the first time in a convention setting. We had some hijinks while shopping at the sex shop booths. I thought she was smelling the vibrators when she was testing their vibrations against her nose and then did the same to my nose which had me recoiling back. Then later on, I was waiting in the lobby for her and our pizza only to learn she hadn’t put in the order for the pizza because well…

I also learned that Exxxotica was planning to have a cruise sometime in March 2024. It should be fun.

For the rest of the photos on Flickr…

XBIZ Week 2023

The X3 Expo and XBIZ Awards returned to the Hollywood Palladium in January directly following XBIZ LA, a conference targeting industry networking.

X3 Expo

There were much more attendees this year compared to last year due to less concern about COVID/Omicron. Even though there was substantial rain that weekend, lines for the public wrapped around the Palladium block waiting for about an hour to enter at their opening times. Tickets were a bargain at $50 for two days, $25 if you had a coupon code. Even if the ticket prices had been higher, I don’t think that would have dampened attendance or enthusiasm for the show.

Inside, I did not observe any obvious prohibition on explicit pornography or nudity in the merchandise that the talent could sell like I did last year. Talent signed throughout the lower and upper bowl of the venue. The busiest lines I saw were for the Brazzers booth, specifically with a corded-off line for Angela White. It was just a really good expo overall.

X3 Photos on Flickr

Since these events were a week after AVN, the activities and busy crowd took both mental and physical tolls on me personally. I’m sure other mutual attendees would agree. Many talent that were advertised to sign did not attend, possibly due to exhaustion.

CeeLo Green was the closing musical performance. It was almost like a disjointed karaoke session in that CeeLo would rap over other tracks of other people’s songs. Are his concerts normally like this?

So I escaped with a friend. Thank you for being magical, Rose.

XBIZ Awards

I was originally not supposed to stay in LA that Sunday. However, a pretty girl asked me to be her plus one for the XBIZ Awards. I also thought it would be better if I was behind the red carpet rather than wait in line with her for two hours to be on the red carpet. Because of the rain, they moved the red carpet indoors in a compact area so the walkers were bunched up with each other and so were the photographers and video crews. I did what I could, even with a non-cooperative photographer next to me.

XBIZ Awards red carpe t o n F l i c k r

The XBIZ Awards were clean, integrated, and mostly to the point. Hosts Joanna Angel and Small Hands moved the show along with levity. I agreed with many of the winners chosen, and there were no surprises even though I don’t know the XBIZ voting bloc well. The only flaw for the night was the somewhat uptight Palladium security given the mostly industry attendees. They were too aggressive kicking the audience out after the show into the pouring rain.

A Look at The 1989 Winter CES (Adult)

Now that 2023’s AEE/X3 shows are behind us, let’s take an even further look back at the 1989 Winter CES show.

Photographer John A. Mozzer (who is also known around these parts as performer Alan Adrian) shared a bunch of photos he took around the 1989 Winter CES â€“ when the adult exhibitors were tucked away on the second floor of the Sahara, and private parties were where you rubbed your elbows.

We can’t recommend enough getting lost and clicking around John’s meticulously captioned galleries over on SmugMug â€“ it’s a cornucopia of the NYC downtown scene (and elsewhere) peppered with some familiar faces and a really great eye for the candidâ€¦

Click on the picture below to see the rest of the CES gallery:

Source: John A. Mozzer’s gallery of 1989 Winter CES, Adult Exhibitors, Las Vegas

Exxxotica DC 2022

Last stop of the Exxxotica tour, this show at the Dulles Expo Center in Virginia was the smallest of the four this year. The energy was overall good, and I had a chance to test out a new ring flash setup for the first time. I had no idea what I was doing on the fly so some of the photos from the first two days were underexposed.

I enjoyed meeting old friends and making new ones. After blinding Kay Lovely in Jersey with yet another new light setup, I had a chance to gab with this statuesque beauty longer and tinker with both her lights and my flash. Meanwhile, the decorative booth at Emma Sirus caused some focus issues that wasn’t obvious until after I reviewed the photos. I also saw the return of Nikki Dial, who is an incredibly lovely woman to talk to. I almost didn’t recognise her since twenty years is a long time between seeing her.

The afterhours of the convention were a little more laid back this year. With the temperatures dropping below freezing, I just didn’t want to go very far beyond checking out a party that Chaturbate models Ivy Minxxx and Delilah Cass were hosting nearby. I ended up being the Behind The Scenes videographer for April O’Neil as she greeted random dogs during the weekend. I also got to see Alex Coal and Lilly Bell eat several times if you’re into that.

We get a short break with the holidays before reconvening for AVN and XBIZ in January.

The rest of the photos on Flickr

Exxxotica New Jersey 2022

I know. Sounding like a broken record for the past year, Exxxotica New Jersey was the most attended Exxxotica I have been to in the last 12 years. Organisers said that attendance was even larger than a typical AVN Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE) but it wasn’t obvious due to the larger square footage., which kind of scares me on what a post-pandemic AEE would look like the same week as the Consumer Electronic Show.

Like the past Exxxoticas this year, Angela White and Violet Myers had the longest lines stretching haphazardly several booth lengths. Even when Brazzers officials would try to stop the line near the end of the day, fans would continue to wait in line hoping that Angela would continue signing after closing, which she did.

A new booth debuted, Ricky’s Room, by Ricky Johnson that featured Blake Blossom and Mila Monet. I congratulated Blake on her Best New Starlet title with AVN while I was surprised to learn that Mila had been in the industry since 2019. The pandemic has thrown my sense of timing off. I didn’t stray too far from the hotel in the after hours.

On to the last convention of the year with Exxxotica DC.

The rest of the photos on Flickr