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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.

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…

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

Exxxotica Chicago 2022

The second show in Chicago after the pandemic, the attendance was almost overwhelming as people ventured out in full force compared to last year’s antsy group. I didn’t see any mask wearing, and people treated any other precaution like spacing as an afterthought. There was a good balance of the genders, especially on Ladies Free Friday. I saw numerous fangirls excited to meet their stars compared to the usual creepy awkward or entitled obnoxious male attendees that you see at any porn convention.

The talent must have been happy as I saw steady lines waiting patiently, sometimes even hours when it came to the most popular stars like Angela White, Abella Danger, and Violet Myers who signed on tirelessly. Brazzers had the busiest booth at the show, and it was actually cool to see the support staff actively greeting attractive attendees that may become future stars for the website.

The convention would stay busy deep into the late hours on Friday and Saturday, and that became somewhat of a problem with the availability of food options. Not only that, the after-parties started around that time. I was smart enough to choose food rather than drinks but would visit the parties in their closing hour, only to be dragged into the after-after parties by my friends (thanks, Lacy) and strangers that seemed to recognise me somehow.

I mingled quite a bit with cam models like Hime Marie, Ivy Minxxx, and Demi Hawks from the Chaturbate booth. From hosting the parties, their staff, and even the layout of their booth, I found the booth much more accessible to the fans than their main competitor at the convention.

Photos on Flickr

This might have been the busiest Chicago Exxxotica I’ve been to, and I am already dreading the crowd at the upcoming Exxxotica New Jersey in October.