As expected, the third day at the 2007 GAYVN Expo drew the largest turnout yet. As the day progressed, traffic increased with a larger model turnout.
The Titan booth saw an endless supply of eager fans — including many women — wanting to see the studio’s talent. New arrivals included Jake Deckard, Jeremy Hall, Zackary Pierce (donning eye-catching chaps), Jon Galt and Tober Brandt, with Damien Cross, François Sagat, Diesel Washington, Cole Ryan, Jay Armstrong and Alex Baresi all returning to help fill out the largest stable of talent for any studio.
Deckard — a multiple GAYVN Award nominee — was also making waves at the NakedSword booth, which had large attendance throughout the day.
“I think there is an advantage to being in the straight section, because from what I’ve seen in the gay area way in the back there’s not a lot of traffic,” said NakedSword Marketing and Promotions Coordinator Jonathan Edward Foulk. “But here, since we’re with AEBN and we merged together, we have straight on one side and gay on the other, I think it’s very smart of our company. In the past two days we’ve been here, we’ve had over a thousand e-mail sign-ups, people coming by getting free stuff. And people love it even though they may not be gay. They’ll pick it up, go home and go online and see what we have.”
Deckard signed photos and handed out shirts with Rafael Alencar and Alex Chandler, with Chris Wide arriving tomorrow.
“We’re in the straight area so a lot of people don’t realize at first that we’re a gay site, so we kind of break them in slowly,” Chandler said with a laugh. “It’s been really cool because a lot of people from reading my blog and other things are excited to meet me, so its good marketing. It’s just really cool interacting with all these people. You can tell you really make some people’s days, meeting a porn star. That’s neat. It’s always fun.”
With superstar Benjamin Bradley in attendance, the Channel 1 corner was a frequent destination for many Expo-goers who wanted to talk and snap photos with the GAYVN Performer of the Year nominee. Eddie Diaz, Tommy Blade and Josh Vaughn were also on hand, and the booth traffic frequently flooded across other booths with eager fans.
At the 1 Distribution booth, client Chaosmen.com arrived with founder Ryan Ockert and five models: Cameron, Beau, Bralin, Adam, and Zack. The company is releasing its first DVD soon.
“They’ve never done something like this before. Most of them are straight, and they’re all doing a great job. They were a little nervous,” Ockert said. “They asked me a lot of questions about tonight’s HustlaBall, and two of them are filming a scene in about an hour, so I hope they’re horny.”
Hot House had Tony Mecelli join Expo mainstays Vinnie D’Angelo and Francesco D’Macho, who was seen congratulating attendee Matt Cole, another GAYVN nominee.
Over at the Manline by Sportsheets booth, model Pete Ross was busy with demonstrations and photos, even spanking an eager women with a leather paddle.
“Her girlfriend used the one with the ‘Bitch’ imprint, but she missed part of the skin, so it only said ‘itch’. I used the one that said ‘Slut’,” Ross said with a laugh. “I also had a man and his wife come over. He had no problem letting me hop on top of him. That was hot."
More studios appeared as attendees, including Lucas Kazan himself and the crews from Fierce Dog Productions and Dark Alley Media. Pierre Fitch also roamed the crowd filming footage for his website.
Over at the Pink Visual Productions booth in the straight sea of the Expo floor, the large crowds were watching the girls, but Distribution and Operations Manager Kim Kysar noted that many attendees expressed interest in their gay offering, which will be relaunched in the fall as its own studio: Male Spectrum, which will have the same lines and new ones.
“We’re looking for a big debut so that we can allocate more resources and time to it. We have all gay directors shooting our gay lines and we just wanted to separate it and give it the attention it obviously deserves, and make it what it should be,” Kysar said. “We’re just improving our gay productions. A lot of distributors have been coming by asking about and wanting our gay lines, asking about our new lines. We’ve been getting a great response.”
Another company known for its straight product but trying to break into the gay market had a large display in the gay section: Gay Adult Rental Video on Demand was promoting its website from Adult Rental Cash.
“With the gay side of the industry, we’re basically going slowly and just checking to make sure we do it right," said project manager Paul Armstrong. "We have other people we do business with that understand the gay market a lot more than we do, so we check with them. Right now we just want to let the gay audience know about us, just see the product. Whether they purchase the product or not, right now, it’s just that they have a look, let their friends know. In terms of growth I’d like to, movie-wise, triple or quadruple the movies we have, and do so in a more targeted fashion.”
