Several hundred adult retailers from across the country mixed with dozens of performers, producers and industry executives Friday at the lively, star-studded Carnival 2003 presented by The Adult Supersource.
 |
| Click here for gallery. |
This year’s event, by far the largest in the company’s history, unfolded under a giant tent next to the sprawling General Video of America West headquarters. A DJ played an eclectic mix of loud music while some of the businesses’ premier movers and shakers networked and showed off their latest products.
“It is absolutely larger in every way,” General Manager Bob Wolf told AVN.com. “We have more vendors. We have more guests. We have more talent in every regard, more product. It has been a lot of really hard work by a lot of people. I had the easy job. I just oversaw them. … Really and truly, if it wasn’t for the staff around me, this would’ve never been pulled off.”
Director of Marketing Joey Hermis told AVN.com that owner David Sturman wanted to go with a Carnival theme this year and it was up to the staff to give it a twist.
“We made it fun, sultry and sexy, but yet tantalizing and alluring,” he said.
Wolf said the decision to move the talent outside for autographs this year allowed for a steady flow of business inside the GVA offices and warehouse.
“We’re actually just conducting business all day and I’m stunned,” Wolf told AVN.com just after lunchtime. “It was also necessitated by the fact that we had to expand our warehouse. We have two large warehouses, one for VHS and one for DVD. The entire VHS area is where we used to have all the talent and then some. Well, we just can’t do it anymore.
“With the split formats in all the warehouses, we had to come up with something and one of my staff came up with idea, ‘Let’s do it in a tent.” In the past, we’ve just done the food in the tent. We didn’t know what to expect. So this year was a learning experience. A couple little glitches, but certainly nothing major at all.”
Wolf added, “When the vendors are willing to step up to the plate to help put on something of this size and this scope, it’s a wonderful feeling. We have some tremendous vendors and I love working with them.”
Among those vendors were Evil Angel, Sin City Entertainment, Vivid Entertainment Group, Wicked Pictures, Hustler Video, VCA and Private USA.
Belladonna posed topless with autograph seeking fans at the Evil Angel booth. She told AVN.com that after this stop she leaves for Barcelona for a series of appearances and dance dates.
"I leave on Monday and I’ll be gone until Oct. 13. I’m going to shoot two scenes for International Film Group. I sign autographs every day at the Barcelona convention and then I have my dancing,” she said in between signing copies of her Evil Pink DVD.
AVN 2003 Female Performer of the Year Aurora Snow joined fellow contract star Shay Sweet at the Sin City booth. Snow told AVN.com she that had a store signing later in the day and another one on Saturday in San Francisco. The starlet said her directorial debut, Assploitation, is being edited and it’s “turning out wonderfully.”
One of the steadiest crowds of the day surrounded the Kick Ass Pictures booth, where contract star Mary Carey was making an official campaign stop on her quest for the governor’s office. Carey made the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle Friday by coincidence.
“I’m having an awesome time and I think I met a lot of new voters who are going to vote for me,” Carey, who was also being profiled by Los Angeles magazine Friday, told AVN.com.
Meanwhile, porn newcomer Serena South worked the Shane’s World booth, Daisy smiled for photographers at Video Team and Sunrise Adams signed autographs for much of the afternoon at Vivid. Some of the other adult stars spotted included Devinn Lane at the Wicked booth; Lexington Steele, Nautica and Amber Rain at Red Light District; Bridgette Kerkove, Gauge and Britney Foster at Metro; Sunset Thomas at VCA and Keri Windsor at Adam & Eve.
Vivid national sales manager Howard Levine told AVN.com he used to be the sales manager at GVA-West before taking his post at Vivid.
“This is something they used to do a long time ago and it’s now developed into this gigantic big-top. It’s like a great show. We make it every year,” Levine said. “We brought Sunrise with us and we’re rockin’. We got all the big companies up here. Doc Johnson’s got their whole their Vivid line up here.”
Retail buyers from as far away as Panama, Puerto Rico and several East Coast cities made the trek to the Bay Area for this year’s gathering which featured 24 video vendors and 16 novelty companies.
“It’s not just a local show for us,” The Adult Supersource’s Wolf said. “We’re based here in San Francisco, but to have customers come in and respond the way they do and show up from around the country, it makes us ecstatic. (Thursday) was set-up day, and the day before was set-up day. Today my staff has completely stepped up to the plate and made every play that has come their way and I love it. … All we’re doing is overseeing and making sure people have what they want. My staff has been terrific and it makes me very proud of them.”
