LOS ANGELES—Leading professional and lifestyle domination convention DomCon LA returned May 18-22 to the Los Angeles Hilton LAX to mark its 14th year.
The annual conference, organized by Mistress Cyan and the staff at Sanctuary Studios LAX, brought together hundreds of professional and lifestyle BDSM practitioners, slaves, newbies and many more to the five-day event. The show floor was filled with sellers of everything from floggers and paddles to latex fetish wear and corsets to fetish artwork and e-stimulation products.
A major player in the world of BDSM, The Stockroom, had a booth on the floor as well as served as a sponsor of the event, just as it has for the past several years, explained Mistress Bella, event coordinator for the adult retailer and manufacturer.
“The Stockroom has long been a leader when it comes to BDSM fashions and gear,” Mistress Bella said. “We were the first online store to sell BDSM products. All our designs are local and in-house and we can customize them. It only makes sense that we want to support this event year after year.
“This year, we even made a few announcements,” Mistress Bella continued. “We debuted a special new dress of the show and announced that we can now provide laser etching for products to customize them.”
The store’s sister fashion company, Syren Latex, created a Newmar Dress (think Julie Newmar, the 1960s Catwoman) accented with red piping and a bow. Syren also offers glovelets to accessorize the dress. As for The Stockroom, the company can now, for $15, laser etch names, slogans and more on products made of leather, metal and more.
“The laser etching is perfect for people who might own a flogger or paddle or collar that looks similar to others,” Mistress Bella said “If you are at a play party, with this laser etching you can easily identify the items that are yours.”
Also making its debut at DomCom LA was Kink Weekly, an online newsletter about the BDSM and kink communities that was created about nine months ago by Dexx and Sara. Already, Sara said, the readership is 2,700 and growing.
KinkWeekly.com was designed to complement Fet Life and be a source of curated educational and informative content.
“We are looking to provide education, opinion, event reviews, erotica, photo spreads and more to fans and practitioners,” Sara said.
The site wants to continue to expand its coverage, she added, by covering legal news and more about the lifestyle.
Returning to DomCon LA after debuting at last year’s conference was Whiplr, a kinky messenger app.
“At the last DomCon we launched and had 10 users,” said Max Candy, director of BDSM movies and spokesperson/consultant for the app. “Now, we have more than 600,000 users.”
Whiplr is a social media platform for kinky people, allowing them to find, message, meet up and more. Candy explain there are three main components to the app. The first, he said, is similar to Grindr, in that Whiplr allows people to find others using the app in their area and call, text or video call.
The second component is similar to Instagram: app users can upload their photos for likes and comments. The app often runs contests, Candy said, where users whose photos get the most likes can win free trips or cash.
The third part of the platform is the group chat function, Candy said. The app lets people who are at certain events, such as DomCon LA, talk to one another and schedule meet-ups and more.
The “freemium” model app—meaning users can download and use Whiplr for free but can upgrade to a monthly membership for better access and more functions—launched in London, and creators are making a concerted effort to expand Whiplr in the U.S., specifically Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York to start, Candy said.
In addition to vendors and exhibitors on the show floor, four rooms were set aside for the seminar program sponsored by Kink University. Seminars and panels covered a variety of topics, from “Sissification” and “Healthy Happy Humiliation” to “Portraits of FemDoms in History” to “BDSM & GOD: Can Faith and Fetish Co-Exist?”
Rounding out the conference were the entertainment options: there were parties and networking opportunities nightly, and special events during show hours including the DomCon Pet Show and Awards Presentation hosted by Mistress Ellen and The Mistress Tea for lifestyle and professional dominas.
For more about DomCon LA, and to stay up to date for next year’s event, visit DomConLA.com.
Pictured, the DomCon show guide and Hudsy Hawn, who once again gave a live performance at the event. Photos by Chris King/ReelSeduction.com
