The final day of the First Annual AVN Conference entertained topics from the floor - one addressed the role that Free Speech has played in garnering positive media support.
Paul Fishbein: "The Free Speech Coalition for a relatively small amount of money uses a P.R. firm to get us media. We got tons of positive media this last year for the industry from local TV stations and newspapers. As a media contact, people will call me, and I'll say things like its on cable TV, it's available on pay-per-view, a new generation of kids turning 18, etc. - most of the media is really positive. The wire service picks it up, and it goes out over the Internet wire services. Little bits of information sink into the nation's consciousness - positive, good information. The organization doesn't spend a lot of money. When the Sacramento-stuff was happening the first time, we got tons of media. All of a sudden Nina Hartley and Juli Ashton are on national television fighting a certain bill. The perception of the adult industry has come around in the last 10 years."
Attorney Clyde DeWitt: "Monica Lewinsky demonstrated to politicians that a sex scandal isn't going to turn around a presidential administration if there's no war and no depression."
Fishbein: "It would be great if Ed Powers could get syndicated [his radio show]. He could be like the Rush Limbaugh of porn.
The conference itself drew these kinds of reviews.
Ed Wedelstedt: "What we're trying to do here is make it so we can survive for the future. It was a good group here. This was advertised for a year. In my opinion, the one's who really care about this industry were here this week. We have to have a guideline where we're going to go and where we want to take this industry. We'll work on the pirating. It's us. We have to plan our own destiny, join hands and join forces so we can work together. AVN is the bible to our industry. This industry cannot survive without AVN. You're the one who has to bring the word to the people. The conference was fantastic. I learned a lot of things. I didn't know anything about the Internet. I think we'll get a lot of it [the conference] if the people who were here just work together."
Steve Orenstein of Wicked Pictures: "It was great. I had my doubts coming in - 19 years in the business and I can honestly say that this time spent with this size of a group of people in the business feels really good. Usually you have a meeting for an hour. Everyone screams and says their peace and leaves. Here it was three hours, four days-in-a-row, where things got a little chance to sink it. What comes out of it, we'll see when we leave. I think it's been very positive, I'll be anxious to see the next one. At the trade shows, you don't usually get a group like this together - you have a five-minute attention span, including my own. You're so crazy about what happened during the day. Here, there's nothing going on but what we're here to discuss. I think Paul did a great job to steer the discussions. If someone else were heading it up we'd be sitting here waiting for someone to start it all. I do appreciate talking about the webposse-stuff, and that he's going to go back and jump on that. AVN's taking a real major role. It's important, otherwise we'd be fighting with one another and getting nowhere.
Bernie Oakley of Adult Diary, Inc.: "I got to meet people that I didn't know I didn't know - there were figures in the industry here I never go to meet during the normal course of a convention. It's been great. I think just having the open conversation between people who are pretty strong competitors on a daily basis talk about common issues has really been good. I'd really be surprised if anybody could talk negative about this conference. The days that were best were the days that were the craziest. The comments were flying back and forth. Nobody got mad. There were no fistfights in the hallways. I agree having it this far away completely cut you off so we could sit here and concentrate on what we were doing - and then have some fun at night. It was better than I expected because I thought what can you do in three hours a day. I wouldn't want to do this longer than three hours a day. This was plenty of time to talk about what needed to be talked about. I really do think it ought to be continued. I can't give Paul enough credit for pulling this stuff together. This is such a fragmented industry, and the only thing that bothers me about it is when they say let's all get together and agree - well, we're not all going to get together and agree. But what we need to do is respect each other as competitors and businessmen. As long as you can do that, everything's okay. Those renegades are always going to be there - there's no barrier to entry to this industry. You can be in this industry tomorrow. As long as that's the case, you're always going to get some lunatic fringe. We're not going to stop that. All we can do is take care of ourselves. I think this is absolutely a wonderful beginning to all that.
Retailer Bill Murphy of the Fairvilla stores in Orlando and Cape Canaveral, Florida: "It was a very good experience to get everybody in the same room so they could look each other in the eye and say what they wanted to say, even if it was 'fuck you.' It was still a good thing to be here. I feel honored even being asked.
Bert Levesque of Zane Entertainment: "I thought it was just great. I hope we do it again next year. How many times do we get a chance to have honest dialogue with everybody having a chance to say something? I think it's phenomenal. It's great business. We're building good relationships. Every other major industry does this, why shouldn't we?"
Ferrall Timlake: "It was fantastic for us because we always feel like we're the unheard voice and out of it by being in San Diego. Here we get to be recognized. I got a lot of people saying thank you for speaking up. I couldn't be happier. I got a big mouth, and if someone's listening it's a beautiful thing. This is the way the industry should start forming the bond to really be something that gets respected. You have to respect each other and starting treating each other in the fashion to raise the ethical level, and the artistic level. In the history of the business, the inhibitions about sex have made people cagey about relating to it. But these kind of dialogues and everyone getting on similar terms makes it possible for everybody to sort of accept what we do and portray it in the best possible fashion."
Frank Kay: "I'm glad we can get away from the trade show environment. That helped me more than anything. At trade shows I'm hit with retailers because of IVD; I'm hit with distributors because of IVD; I'm hit with duplicators because of Pleasure; DVD replicators because of Pleasure; with East Coast News I'm hit with novelty vendors, so I'm being hit from nine million directions. I can't talk to people at the show. Then I have to worry about my booth. This was a lot better. I was able to relax a little bit, enjoy the discussions, enjoy the atmosphere, hang out a little bit and talk to people I haven't talked to in years, including certain distributors who are competitors with us. That was kind of unique. Hopefully some of the issues I brought up with piracy and content issues, I can come to some conclusions on those in the next month. I think that was key for me. I think the piracy issue is a big item. I'm going to try to pull together a class action. If the manufacturers don't want to be part of it, they don't have to be part of it….the meetings were good. Everyone contributed. No one sat in the background."
Mel Kamins of GVA: "I think the industry needs a retreat weekend where everybody can come that's in the business. We need the guys with the two and three stores; we need the small manufacturers at these meetings. We have to talk about the magazine business, too. It has a lot to do with us. The marital aids people should be there, too…. It was good meeting. Something was put together and I marvel at that."
