“Have you seen that line out there? I’ve never seen anything like that many people before!” Those words, or something like them, were on the lips of many exhibitors and retailers around 11 a.m. when the doors of the Adult Entertainment Expo were opened for the first time to the fans—a multitude of them.
They flooded through the Sands Convention Center hall with their digital cameras and videocams and, beyond clogging the aisles, did little to dampen the spirit and enthusiasm of the 328 exhibitors—a new AEE record. The booths, large and small, stretched from Hustler, Vivid, Club Jenna and Adam & Eve up front to the trade-only B2B area at the back.
Janine and Mercedez were pulling morning duty at Vivid, with Krystal Steal signing right next door at Club Jenna. Tawny Roberts popped up a bit later at the side pit stop of the many-curtained Vivid booth. Not far away, at Wicked Pictures, contract girls Julia Ann and Stormy were pillars of blond perfection.
Adam & Eve promotional director Katy Zwolerin was looking forward to the arrival of, among other stars, contract girl Carmen Luvana and AVN Hall of Famer Chasey Lain. They just shot the two women together in Black and White 2, under the direction of Luc Wylder.
At Digital Playground, two more killer blondes, Jesse Jane and Devon, chatted with retailers as salespeople took orders. The exquisite Franco-Vietnamese Katsumi mesmerized fans at the Pure Play booth, and another Europorn superstar, Rita Faltoyano, held court at Smash Pictures.
A sparkling Jewel De’Nyle said she loves her new home in New York, though she makes regular trips to L.A. to direct her movies. She revealed that this will be her last signing appearance at the Adult Expo. Still a 25% owner of Platinum X, she plans on working behind the scenes when they and Red Light District move (hopefully soon) into their new Chatsworth command center.
Jeff Steward, owner of JM Productions, was waiting for his two stars, Ashley Blue and Missy Monroe, to show up. “I should have told them to be here at nine—that way they’d be here by ten,” he said resignedly. In the meantime, he talked about his new series from Khan Tusion, Midnight Prowl, which he calls “somewhere between amateur and reality porn.” Porn girls show up at adult bookstores and have sex with the customers, much to their apparently spontaneous surprise.
Director Tom Zupko was holding down the fort at the Elegant Angel booth, waiting for fan-magnets Roxanne Hall and Tiana Lynn. Lynn’s most recent EA vehicle is Supersquirt, co-directed by Zupko and William H. Zupko just made his first trip to Europe, shooting three movies in the Czech Republic. He said that despite jet lag, language barrier, culture shock and having to shoot a lot of footage in a short amount of time, he’s pleased with what he got done there, including Big Wet Czech Tits. Zupko is starting a new line, Dirty Sleazy Ass, with girls in “dark situations.”
Over at Anabolic-Diabolic, the signature Anabolic t-shirts were being generously distributed to packs of eager fans. And they had something new this year: a large-format calendar with extreme hardcore photos of Anabolic’s favorite girls. “Just wait—next year everybody’s going to have these,” said Gia Paloma, the most popular babe at the booth, as she signed a photo of herself in full-tilt anal action.
Industry veteran Marty Turkel, sales manager of Juicy Entertainment, told AVN.com that the company is doing “better than I thought we would at this point. We feel we’ve arrived—and we did it the right way, selling to distributors and the Internet, not individual stores.” He welcomed on board Francesca Le and Mark Wood, whose productions they’ll be distributing, and praised Juicy’s own directors, Van Damage and Rob King.
Retailers may have been surprised to see former Zane Entertainment owner Chuck Zane at the Extreme Associates 2.0 booth. “I’m doin’ the foreign for Rob,” grinned the uncle of Extreme owner Black. Also for Tom Byron’s Evolution Erotica and Max Hardcore. “I get to go to Europe five or six times a year,” Zane said. “It’s better than having to come into the office every day.” Fans were treated to the official unveiling of new Extreme contract girl, Salome—who turns out to have been Kami Andrews in a previous starlet incarnation.
| <?PHP print Create_Archive_Image_Tag('<% Content_ID %>', "day2_st.jpg", "", " height=\"263\""); ?> |
Another familiar face in a new setting belonged to Mara Epstein—her second day on the job as director of sales and marketing with Metro Interactive. She was already “getting things in order,” but couldn’t do anything about the Metro banners and art work that had failed to arrive on time. Epstein was jazzed about working with such a high profile company, just as they’re about to relocate to a different part of Chatsworth.
Yet another industry veteran Henri Pachard told AVN.com that he’s doing production and marketing for Venus Girls, the home video version of thevenusgirls.com. “We’re just starting to go to stores,” he said.
At Leisure Time Entertainment, Noel Bloom, one of home video’s trailblazers, was repping his comeback company, Maxximum Exposure. He’s pleased with the progress of his less than a year-old endeavor— releases are up to four a month. He said he was delighted to run into adult legend Seka after she cut the ribbon to open the Expo. She made her name in the Swedish Erotica loops that Bloom created.
Kat Sunlove was getting things in order at the Free Speech Coalition booth, equipped with two computers set up to Send a Message to Congress about civil liberties concerns regarding the Patriot Act. “We had 50 people send a message yesterday,” she said, “and that was just retailers.”
Arnold Stein of Old Pueblo Distribution paraded his stellar and growing client list, to which a new, well-known name is about to be added (stay tuned!). He was especially jazzed about Jekyll & Hyde, who are about to go beyond their all-oral Stick It in My Face series to full sex scenes. “I made four European deals already,” he said with pride.
At GM Video, owner George wanted to set the record straight after a published report in AVN’s January “Fast Forward” cover story said they’d be making their first trip to Cabo San Lucas. They’ve actually been to Cabo many times and will be going back again for Spring Break—right after their annual pilgrimage to Mardi Gras.
At the Heatwave booth the talk was of Riley Brooks, the all-American nasty girl who just signed on as the new “Kelly the Coed.” And then there’s Jennifer Steele, a fire-eater, who blows flames from her mouth during sex. The all-black Onyxxx line, Heatwave’s Alex said, is going out like gangbusters, especially titles like Analicious and Anal Stallion, with Cinnabunz.
Hall of Fame director Andrew Blake, the owner of Studio A Entertainment, pitched his new release, Close-Up, with the gorgeous Tall Goddess, who he turned into a blonde. Blake says he still prefers to shoot on film and transfer it to DVD. He values the “impressionistic” film look over the see-every-pimple realism of Hi-Definition. “If you want to see the ‘real thing,’” he chuckled, “go out and get yourself a real girl.”
