In its inaugural opening, this past week's 2007 GAYVN Summit in San Francisco played to packed houses, exceeding anticipated attendance levels. Witnessing explosive growth in the Bay Area, this annual event, which culminated in the GAYVN Awards Show, has made San Francisco its future home.
For three full days, the summit brought leading professionals from all sectors together to participate in seminars, specialty functions, and off-site evening parties. The summit is a new strategic conference developed with a specific focus on business and technology, providing an environment for sharp-minded business people to foster relationships and make valuable connections.
"The Summit was truly spectacular," said Patrick Curran, Chief Administrative Officer of EPOCH, "it provided insightful information to grow my business, plus it was both inspirational and a lot of fun."
In addition, one of the most important aspects of the GAYVN Summit was its ability to put studios in contact with webmasters and VOD providers.
"While studios may send a representative to conferences like Internext or the Phoenix Forum, studio heads, videographers, and marketing teams seldom have interaction with the webmasters and affiliates who are promoting their content," said Tim Valenti, President of VOD powerhouse NakedSword.com. "The GAYVN Summit was a great opportunity not only for them to meet these people, but also to participate in seminars and stimulate discussion."
Events such as the Falcon cocktail party, the COLT 40th Anniversary event, and the Raging Stallion open house provided unparalleled opportunity for two sides of the industry to meet and learn from one another.
The summit culminated in the GAYVN Awards celebration, which recognizes talented individuals and the movies that have contributed to the advancement of the gay adult entertainment industry. This year's show host was Kathy Griffin, the multi-faceted performer, and star of Bravo cable network's reality series, "My Life on the D List."
"We are absolutely thrilled by the turn-out. The week kicked off what promises to be a great year in gay porn entertainment," said Chad Beecher, Vice President Business Relations, AVN Media Network and Vice President and Publisher, GAYVN division. "The fact that our summit numbers were well beyond what was planned, and the awards show at the Castro Theatre sold out very quickly, acknowledges the burgeoning growth of our industry in San Francisco and the appreciation for the amazing work done in the gay adult entertainment community."
Sponsors of the event included ASACP, CommerceGate, CalExotics, Cybersocket, EPOCH, Free Speech Coalition, GayImLive, GayHotMovies, Maleflixxx, ManShop, Nakedsword, Rentboy and VideoSecrets.
