"I'm definitely coming to the convention next year," a former AVN staffer told me, "but there's no way I can stand another show.""I'm definitely coming to the convention next year," an adult Internet salesperson told me, "but there's no way we're renting a booth again."
As I sat in the Venetian ballroom watching my second AVN awards, which featured some truly touching moments from the likes of Lexington Steele and Vanessa Blue, who announced their engagement (the moment was ruined by co-presenter Chi Chi LaRue, who acted like she didn't hear the announcement and really wanted to tell her joke), Rob Black, who apologized to the world and to his wife while accepting his Reuben Sturman award (Lizzie Borden cried), and Larry Flynt who, due to his condition, chooses his words carefully and chooses them well, I observed once again that the real event was out in the hall.
Porn suffers most from a lack of follow-through. While millions of dollars were spent putting this convention and awards show together, all Playboy audiences will see (Playboy is going to broadcast the show) is technical difficulties, unfunny and poorly-planned interstitial videos, awkward presentation, and hosting that is close, but not ready for prime time.
Where does the money go?
The money is in the hotel suites, where company owners who eschewed booths invited clients to seal the deal with the aid of contract girls. The money was in the exchange of business cards, alcohol, and gossip on the convention floor. The actresses who were signing posters and posing for pictures, who made an average of $500 a day, were a front for the bigger deals that went on behind the flimsy partitions of cheap but expensively-made and dearly-rented booths.
One startup porn company, after shelling out about $6k for booth space and amenities (booth rental: 100 square feet at $29 per square foot, electronics including DVD player, plasma screen, and speaker: a coupla thousand, two folding chairs at $115 apiece and a stool for the talent at $145, and $1800 for labor) was placed at the back of the convention hall near the GayVN booths and saw very little traffic.
"At least delivery was free," the booth operator said. "If we brought all the equipment from Los Angeles we would have had to have the Teamsters carry it from the truck to the booth." Small comfort, though: as they packed up on Sunday they packed several unopened boxes of their posters.
While fans waited in line and paid $40 or $50 to get onto the convention floor, a brisk business in ticket scalping was happening online at Craigslist and eBay, where the $250 awards show tickets were being advertised for twice that much. Still, several 10-person tables stood empty while plates of snacks (the best so far said veteran attendees) and bags of novelties like Pussy2Go went untouched.
It is a sad fact that people who mean so much to the industries they are part of often preside over companies filled with resentful employees. "I have a much better relationship with Paul Fishbein now that I don't work at AVN," a porn company rep said under the condition of anonymity. I feel the same way. Paul Fishbein has been great to me since he fired me.
Similarly, Larry Flynt (and his family) might be controversial within his company, but no one can dispute the impact he has had on the way porn is perceived and the way the First Amendment has been interpreted in the past thirty years. His halting speech onstage concluded with, "The true measure of a great country is the extent to which it leaves its citizens alone."
It was difficult to hear most of Flynt's excellent speech, as attendees were moving freely about the room and refusing to shut the fuck up. It is ironic that Flynt is the reason that most of them have the opportunity to be rude at a porn awards show.
Both Paul Fishbein and Digital Playground owner and Pirates director Joone, who have both done a lot to make porn more mainstream-friendly, told me that porn should never be fully mainstreamed, lest the whole ship sink.
"There has to be something edgy about it or it won't be interesting," Joone said, adding that he sees a time when Digital Playground will make independent films with sex in them rather than exclusively producing porn movies. "We could have made a much sexier Basic Instinct, for example," he said.
Mainstreaming was also going on throughout the convention space and awards show, as strict edicts prevented flashing and videos could only display softcore images.
Still, it was difficult observing all the porn-specific slow-moving train wrecks that, according to longtime attendees, have always characterized convention week.
"The show always starts late, there's always technical difficulties, it always looks like it wasn't rehearsed, there's always an issue getting badges (everyone has their cell phone out trying to get in touch with someone in charge who didn't give the word to the gatekeepers) ... it's the way things are," yet another exhibitor who chose to remain anonymous said.
The love/hate relationship with AVN is never so much on display as during this time, as players balance their need to court AVN while keeping their legitimate complaints in check.
Despite the complaints, people have fun. No one leaves well-rested. They leave hungover with carry-ons filled with business cards and flyers advertising "exclusive" parties that somehow filled up with the public. They leave with promotional DVDs and clothes that smell, as all Vegas does, like an over-chlorinated swimming pool filled with cigarettes. They leave, like I did, with a resolution to do things slightly differently next year.
posted by Gram the Man
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Monday, January 09, 2006 
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Lee said...
- Thanks for entertaining and informative posts on the AVN convention. Maybe someday I'll make it out for it.
- Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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