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AVN Week 2023

Adult Entertainment Expo

The AVN Adult Entertainment Expo returned to Las Vegas this month after a 3-year absence due to the coronavirus pandemic. This year, it was concurrent with the return of the Consumer Electronic Show, something that hadn’t happened since 2011. Because of crossover attendance, this was the busiest AEE that I remember but also the most expensive. Prices for rooms, food, and transit have jacked up since the three years.

The host Resorts World is huge, and I saw families with children walking around the facilities which did not happen when AEE was at the Hard Rock. Because of this, there was a more restrictive dress code that people were expected to adhere to when leaving the confines of the convention. Given the size and complexity of the show and the limited production staff, it was definitely a success. Sure, there were quirks that can be ironed out at future shows but that happens at every new venue.

Besides the adjoining Adult Novelty Expo, AEE featured three main halls. One focused on production companies and webcam platforms, one focused on the gay side of the industry, and the last was mainly talent agencies. At any given point of the day from opening to close, you could find new people to meet walking back and forth between the halls. With the production company booths, most talent had 4 hour signing shifts while the talent at the agencies booth and the AVN booth averaged around 2 hours.

Outside of the actual expo grounds, Vixen rented space in the Resorts World mall to host a pop-up store featuring their clothing line and contract stars. Riley Reid appeared for two days exhibiting her Eighteen Plus clothing line, and the overall line to get into the store lasted about 3 hours.

Expo photos on Flickr

AVN Awards 2023

So weird thing happened to me. After the end of the expo with drink in hand, I was trying to find a ticket for IAFD spokeswoman, Alex Blake, to walk the red carpet for the AVN Awards. When the nice producer saw that I had a press badge for IAFD, he handed me a press badge to be behind the Awards red carpet. I was not prepared to shoot the Awards since I had not charged my camera and flashes after finishing the expo, and I was already 30 minutes late for the call time.

After sheepishly explaining to Alex what had happened and cancelling two shoots, I ran up to my room to throw on my suit, grabbed my camera and strobe, and came back down. The only space that was available was at the end of the carpet what was only half covered by a wall background. I shared my spot with two guys, Jay of Jay’s Playhouse and Bobby of Girlsincars or something similar to that, who were great guys as we coordinated our shots rather than compete with each other. I took about 3-4 shots per look and tried not to miss anyone, but several people skipped us since we were the end of the line and they just wanted to move on.

The carpet started at 5:30pm and kept going until 9pm with 750+ walkers. It does not need to be this grueling. They tried to limit the walkers to nominees, but the problem is that there are too many nominees! Most categories have around 10 nominations each (some with multiple performers), but the fan award categories can have 20-30 nominations with no overlap with the other categories. This Oprah approach builds interest but is too overwhelming on the red carpet. Perhaps the fan awards should be separated into another event.

Awards red carpet photos on Flickr

As for the Awards themselves, they went pretty much as predicted. We were correct with several of our projections. I was pleased as fuck to see Kira Noir win Female Performer of the Year; not just because of its historic nature but that she is one of the nicest and best people in the industry. Congratulations.

Miscellaneous

Because of the expense and limited room blocks, it seemed like more talent stayed outside of Resorts World so you wouldn’t see them at night outside of the expo. I was reluctant to leave Resorts World out of laziness so I mostly stuck to the events that were hosted there.

I mostly hung out with my boys at IAFD and AdultDVDTalk along with IAFD spokeswoman Alex Blake. I would like to thank Mark Spiegler, Don Juan de Marko, Tim Von Swine, and East Coast Talent for their hospitality at several events into the late hour.

Thank you, Liz, Chanel, and Alex for making magic with me.

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 2018

Wow, AVN week went by in a blur and some of that experience could be blamed on some health issues and that I tried to keep things as low key as possible after the convention hours. I don’t know how people can work a convention, go out and party the entire night, rinse, and wake up the next day to repeat the cycle three days ultimately culminating in the Awards. I mean I used to do this on an annual basis when I was in my 20s, but those days are long gone.

August Ames: Never Forget worn by Penny Pax

The AVN convention or AEE (Adult Entertainment Expo) was dominated in square footage by the cam companies most specifically by MyFreeCams (MFC), Chaturbate, and Cam4. You would see cam girls not only at their booths but in the crowds visiting their friends or allowing their cam room to view the convention by taking their laptops and webcams with them. In fact, beyond just camgirls, it seems like the dominant theme this year is on performers whether cam people or traditional porn stars producing their own content and releasing them through outlets like Clips4Sale or ManyVids and receive a percentage. With the glut of Internet piracy out there this is probably the wave of the future for performers to make money in that they have to diversify their income beyond getting a set rate for a scene.

Stefanie Joy always takes the time to greet me.

Catjira, AVN’s Favorite Camming Cosplayer

As for the traditional production booths, Greg Lansky and the general Mindgeek booths had the busiest claustrophobic traffic while Jules Jordan and Evil Angel had their own share of busy lines. Riley Reid, Abella Danger, and Adriana Chechik drew the busiest lines. Evil Angel had the most organised booth and were handing outÂ August Ames shirts which were worn by attendees throughout the convention courtesy of Kevin Moore.

Abella Danger and her glee from receiving a Helga shirt from a fan

I noticed that many active porn stars did not attend the convention, and it was hard to catch people who did attend but not signing at a booth. Popular camgirls were also hard to track down because they were more interested in their laptops or hanging out with their peers than interacting with the attendees.

I did not attend the Awards this year even though IAFD got to vote for the first time. I did not want to deal with the red carpet or the ensuing requests from people who attended the Awards. Maybe if I have the energy next year, I’ll attend the Awards as a spectator to support my friends. Congratulations to Angela White, who had the trifecta distinction of being inducted in the Hall of Fame, hosting the AVN Awards, and winning a record 14 awards including Female Performer of the Year.

For the convention photos on Flickr.

Ramblings from Exxxotica New Jersey 2017

So wow. This Jersey show was the first Exxxotica that reminded me of an AVN Adult Entertainment Expo with the crowds and lines to see the stars.Â Where the other locations, even while busy, allow you to have the time to talk to the performer, conversations will end up building a line behind you.

Riley Reid, who is notorious for spending quality time (5-10 minutes) with each attendee that sees her, matched her busy lines at AVNs and easily had the longest lines in the show running 15-20 deep. Abella Danger, Adriana Chechik, and Angela White also had eye-popping lines and waits. I was extremely lucky that Riley, Abella, and Angela each took the time to take a break from their respective lines for my camera that I tried not to keep them from their fans by taking only a couple of snaps.

My phone took a beating physically and electronically. AbellaÂ and Angela’s appreciatively tagging my photos during the convention had my phone buzzing constantly as their fans gave their worshipping feedback.Â My Instagram and Twitter followers increased by the hundreds while I fumbled trying to turn off push notification for both apps. Meanwhile unexpected displays of affection from girls like Lexi Belle, Gina Valentina, and others sent my phone a tumbling onto the floor. Damn, Gina!

With such strong demand for the traditional performers, the cam companies and their girls were almost an afterthought. Many camgirls seemed either intimidated by the crowds or annoyed at attendees distracting them from their cam rooms. I can understand why several withdrew deeper into their booths to devote to their camming, and I think they use the conventions to network with each other more than try to build their fan base. Exceptions to this were Hime Marie, who had shot with several companies, and Kawaii Serina, who I had previously met in Denver.

As for the parties, I refused to leave the host hotel and visited the on-site parties for a max of maybe an hour each. Long gone are the days of 36-hour Morbid. My nights were more focused on visiting with my friends in a more low-key manner aka the hotel bar and any real partying were in the hotel rooms upstairs.

For the rest of the photos:

Flickr – Somewhat SFW
Tumblr – NSFW

AVN 2017

Another year; another AVN. The show expanded this year with the host Hard Rock Hotel building a new hallway for the Adult Novelties Expo. This increase in layout helped with thinning the crowds as there was more surface area to breathe. The main themes this year are webcam and VR companies which are signs of where the industry thinks consumers are going, trends that are hard to pirate.

With webcams, the user gets to interact with a person in ways that cannot be done on video. Not only was this year’s expo sponsored by MyFreeCams (MFC) and Chaturbate; you saw hundreds of camgirls running about causing mini accidents as they try to navigate the crowd with a laptop in hand. Just the MFC booth that lines the first hallway you see is intimidating where you see girls more interested in talking to their computers than with the attendees. Same with the Chaturbate booth which took up a good chunk of a ballroom.

Various virtual reality companies demonstrated their wares from Hologirls VR, Reality Lovers, and Cam4VR. Ela Darling led me through a rather innocent Cam4VR demonstration where the VR girl twerked for me in a bedroom. I was more curious exploring the environment than in engaging the virtual girl to her liking.

As for the photos:

Click the champagning and campaigning for photos from the Expo

Click for the AVN Awards red carpet photos

Notes:

The best booth this year was Greg Lansky‘s Blacked/Tushy/Vixen booth which featured its own bar. They had the best group of girls, and Riley Reid had the longest lines again for the 6th year in the row. Greg was very accommodating to the press and gave us a lounge area to rest our feet. Even though there was plenty of alcohol available, I just helped myself to bottled water and the couches.
Second favourite booth was Jules Jordan Video which also had awesome girls and featured the second longest lines with Abella Danger. Abella worked so hard she didn’t have much of a voice every night I saw her out and about.
As for the awards, I was put on red carpet duty instead of behind the scenes this year. Actually the first red carpet that I’ve done since 2009 and my last. Rather than taking a photo at a measured pace of people that are happy to see you with a drink or two in hand, doing red carpet means you have to try to catch everyone; calling them out to you, and blinding the fuck out of them while competing with other photographers. I had the issue of the two other photographers in my section overdirecting and monopolozing the shots. Not my finest moment.
Since I didn’t enter the Awards to watch the show, I can’t comment on it. I did notice many performers that had walked the carpet skip the show; some because they weren’t nominated to others who weren’t allowed to smoke inside the venue.
Thank you, Samantha Bentley & Val Dodds. We created magic.