Saturday. The day that traditionally has been marked by an opening of the floodgates onto unbridled, beyond-gridlocked hysteria at AVN’s Adult Entertainment Expo. It’s the big day for fan turnout, and the most nerve-wracking one of the year for the hundreds of directors, performers, writers and other production personnel nominated for the biggest honor in adult, an AVN Award, given out in the grand ballroom of the Venetian after the sun goes down.
Today, things have certainly been loud, crowded and bustling, but not as shoulder-to-shoulder glutted as in years past. Not inside the convention halls, anyway. The corridors leading to them, though? Well, that’s another story. In fact, part of the reason it’s not so jam-packed on the floor is most likely due to the much more stringent admittance control being exercised this year, with exhibitors and fans alike being required to show photo i.d.’s and get their hands stamped in order to make it through the doors.
Of course, another factor contributing to the seemingly lighter crowd on the floor is the sheer immensity of it, more spread out than ever before and broken up onto two floors of the Sands Expo Center. But the masses turned out, and they turned out in droves. Looking at the sea of people lined up at the ticket booths downstairs — a line that snaked from wall to wall in the entranceway and out into the hall, past all the staircases and beyond as far as you could see — was one hell of a sight. And they were being treated to some preliminary entertainment while they waited, with various girls being pulled onto a stage at the front of the downstairs hall to be interviewed about their range of on-screen sex acts. One particularly interesting interviewee was a very pregnant Kylie Worthy, who said she isn’t doing any bun-in-the-oven videos, but will be getting back to doing all sorts of other wild stuff once her child is born.
The traffic on the lower floor was somewhat sparse, which was understandable, since all the big stars were stationed on the top level at the production companies’ booths. But there were plenty of interesting things to come across downstairs, including industry veteran William Margold, who was manning the booth for Protecting Adult Welfare, his porn counseling organization, and had a mouthful to say about AVN and the imminent Awards show.
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“AVN has come a long way,” he told us. “I’ve always called it the bible for a godless industry.” As for his feelings on the front-running contenders of the year, he very blunted offered that, “I haven’t seen Pirates [Digital Playground/Adam & Eve] but Devil [in Miss Jones, Vivid Entertainment Group] is an absolutely insufferable movie.” Margold, incidentally, is nominated for Best Non-Sex Performance for his work in Red Light District Films’ Dark Side.
In the hallway upstairs, we ran into talent agent Mark Spiegler, who was wearing a black t-shirt reading, “How about a nice cup of shut the fuck up?” and was flanked by porn gals Mandy Starr and Elizabeth Lawrence, as well as new male performer J.C. Stinger. “Did I tell you about my new movie part?” he asked us. “I’m in Bareback Mountain playing Steven St. Croix’s wife.”
Inside, a huge bank of cameras was flashing in front of the Club Jenna booth, as Jenna herself posed with fans. And at the Evil Angel booth, Belladonna and Katja Kassin were getting plenty of snapshot love of their own, including some from Bella’s devoted hubby Aiden.
We had to make our way over to the JM Productions booth to see if the Girlvert (a.k.a. Ashley Blue) had anything amusing to say. She did.
“Check this out,” she exclaimed, producing an issue of Fox magazine and flipping it open to a picture of a girl’s bunghole. “This is the most spectacular specimen of hemorrhoids I’ve ever seen. I want to find this girl [somebody named Jenny] and get her to sign her hemorrhoids.”
Blue was then pulled aside for a quote from Buttman magazine’s Scott Small, whom she told, “I hate Buttman magazine.”
As the day pressed on, the excitement level remained high, sure to rise to a fever pitch in the remaining hours leading up to the Awards show. Check back here immediately afterwards to see the list of winners.
To view galleries from Day 3 of AEE, click here.
To view the complete gallery coverage of AEE, click here.
