AEE Comes to an End

Like a piss-soaked girl at the end of a Max Hardcore movie, over 350 AEE exhibitors drew a collective sigh of relief as a week’s worth of business transactions, meet-and-greets, and signings came to a close. But despite the loss of voice and sleep, exhibitors expressed tremendous satisfaction with the event’s organization and turnout.

"The show has been fantastic," said Bang Productions CEO Pen Davis. "We’ve been able to showcase our entire line and a couple of our new releases, Milf Soup and Big Ass Adventures. They’re long tiring days, but it's well worth it to see the fans interaction with our models and to talk to our customers. That interaction keeps you going."

"This is a fan and media show, and we always participate" said Digital Playground publicist Adella O’Neil, "It’s always fun to debut new girls here. And, we have a new teaser for Pirates 2. We’ve gotten such wonderful feedback from everybody."

"I’ve been going to this show since 1990 and the response we’ve gotten this year is incredible," said Stuart Wall, vice president of Smash Pictures. "The fans loved our booth and, as for business, we got face time with our customers and worked on new orders. But, on top of that, I met plenty of new mobile customers and new broadcast customers—the whole new technology our industry is going into."

Studios' growing interest in content delivery technology was not lost on Hotmovies.com director of web development, Mark Furow. "We started here 5 years ago and it was difficult to get studios onboard," Furow noted. "But now they come to us. And the VOD market is expanding. It's good to see. Competition is good for the consumer."

"The way you write business now is different than the way you had to write business before," said Oren Cohen of Tightfit. "The deals are different. The product looks different. The ways your revenue is coming in isn’t your typical brick and mortar, wine and dine the distributor. And, I like it."

Then again, one can never underestimate the lure of booze and grub. Companies like Zero Tolerance, Nectar, Digital Sin and Devil’s Film offered hospitality suites for their customers.

"It’s a nice way for us to sit down and talk in a quiet environment," said Steve Volponi, national sales director for Devil’s Film. "And, people like to eat for free and drink for free. We saw a lot of traffic."

Devil’s Film also benefited by crossing traffic with owner Keith Repult's sister company Premiere, a one-stop distribution company which had a booth on the convention floor. "We thought we’d hit ’em both ways," said Volponi. "They’d come to the Premiere booth and we’d say ‘hey, you hungry? There’s food in our Devil’s suite. This was an extremely successful show for us."  

"We don’t really do other conventions much at all," said Evil Angel’s Tricia Deveraux. "It’s about our fans. When else will they get a chance to see and talk to our directors or our girls?"

"The show was wonderful ," said Elegant Angel’s marketing director, Mike Barbella. "But, now I just want to go to my room to crash and watch Borat. It’s a very funny movie, bro."