Demonstrating the growth of the annual industry event and its broadening mainstream appeal, the 24th annual AVN Awards is moving to the Mandalay Bay Events Center on January 13, 2007.
“The show has become much bigger than an industry event and it has been crossing over into the mainstream,” said Paul Fishbein, AVN president and founder. “At the Mandalay Bay Events Center, every seat is a good seat. The amphitheatre setting helps everyone have a perfect view and though the table seating is for the industry only, there are great seats to be had at lower prices than last year.”
The show will move from the Venetian Hotel & Casino, where the awards were held for seven straight years. The Events Center has a capacity of 7,000.
“The Venetian is great, but we felt that people sitting in the back of the ballroom had to watch the big screens to see what was happening on stage,” Fishbein said. “Now everyone will feel part of the action.”
Gary Miller, executive producer of the show since its inception, said the new venue will give the awards a place to better showcase the industry’s top talents.
“This isn’t a ballroom that we’re trying to turn into a theater, but a theater built for entertainment and events like this one,” he said.
With a capacity crowd of more than 4,200 people, the 2006 show proved the biggest AVN Awards show ever. But with a new venue, Miller expects to nearly double the attendance as well as increase fan interest thanks to a new marketing campaign targeting fans as well as an effort to increase the number of tickets made available to the public.
“We always have tickets available for the general public, but this time Mandalay Bay is going to make tickets available to the public through its box office and through Ticketmaster,” Miller said.
A new publicity campaign is scheduled to begin Oct. 1 aimed at various media, including print, broadcast, outdoor and in-hotel segments.
Begun in 1984 as a way to honor the industry’s elite members, the AVN Awards was held in a modest meeting room at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas.
“We just had a couple of hundred people in what was really a kind of wine-and-cheese reception for the industry people,” Miller recalled. “But you look at it now, it’s a huge event broadcast all over the world by Playboy TV and on DVD and with a sold out crowd this year. It’s phenomenal.”
Advance tickets will be made available to industry members beginning on Tuesday. The ticket price for industry tables is $2625 (for table of 12). Premiere seating near the stage is being sold in blocks of 12 tickets for the same price. Other ticket prices range from $107-$212.
The Saturday, January 13 date coincides with the end of the 2007 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, which runs from January 10-13, 2007 at the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas.
Industry members may request tickets beginning Tuesday, August 1 at www.avnawards.com or by calling (818) 718-5788 for credit card purchases.
