Some people are just out of sorts in certain places. Amsterdam and the adult industry, which congregated for Webmaster Access Europe Sept. 15 to Sept. 17, slid like a hand into a glove.
Following up successful stops in Cancun and Montreal, show organizers (that bunch from GFY) dipped their toes into the European pool for the first time with the Amsterdam event, which was held at the city’s Renaissance Hotel.
The results were interesting to say the least, with approximately 275 attendees fairly evenly split between North Americans and Europeans. They came out for the typical convention fare – seminars, networking, parties – and some atypical convention fare, at least as far as legalities and ease of access go, available only in Amsterdam.
It was kind of like Vegas, only with culture and a soul.
Jet lag, espresso, and cigarettes
It sounds like a Jim Jarmusch film, but is really an apt description of the first 24 hours after the plane landed at Schiphol.
After catching some sleep in a bed eerily reminiscent of a rock, it was off to the Renaissance Hotel’s bar for three rapid-fire cups of espresso and that ever-so-sweet nicotine jolt.
Amsterdam is the home of Heineken, but when three separate people accuse you of being stoned before you’ve even been to a coffee shop it’s time to think about how well you’ve acclimated.
Once the coffee kicked in, it was all about the Heinekens though. As Thursday night began to degenerate into a haze, various clans went off to dinners, clubs, parties, and so on.
The official beginning of Webmaster Access Europe was Thursday’s DieselCash warm-up party, which was somewhat a parade of freaks.
The main event of the party was the jolly performance artist who wowed the audience with various displays of torture and mutilation, including such parlor tricks as “mousetrap on the dick” and “the third ball”—the third ball being of the bowling variety and hanging from the Artist Formerly Known as Sane’s cock.
Mother would be proud, if you hadn’t killed her.
The meat … and potatoes
Here’s the drill: Scrape yourself out of bed, sit in on some seminars, rest, sample local cuisine, party … I mean, network your ass off, collapse, and repeat.
That’s what came after the start to each day, of course, which involved swallowing a pot of coffee and eating that Paycom EU lunch.
Thought for Friday, the first full day of the show: If I had some processing business to send, I’d send it to Paycom because they give me food when I need it most.
Seminars on Friday focused on traffic and mobile, the latter of which was the highlight of the seminar slate. The mobile panel featured a distinct European flavor, where the mobile presence towers over that of the states.
“Mobile is just another distribution model. You should start to think of offline as well as online. It’s another way to promote your website,” Mooobile.com business development manager Marc Jarrett says.
“The joke about 3G is that [the acronym stands for] girls, games, and gambling, but that’s what’s going to drive the market.”
NoCreditCard.com business development director Bjorn Skarlen urged webmasters interested in the mobile space to choose a knowledgeable partner. There are, after all, a variety of handsets, mobile carriers, and countries that have varying capabilities. “It’s a little bit of a jungle out there,” he says.
The key, he continues, is not to overextend on your first mobile offering: “Start in your own country, do it well, and then move to other countries.”
Some of the intriguing elements on the mobile horizon, according to the panelists, are an increased willingness of mobile carriers to work with the adult industry and mobile search technology similar to Google or Yahoo, which Jarrett says several companies are in competition to deliver.
The traffic seminar featured a who’s who in the TGP game, with panelists Scott Hjorleifson of SleazyDream fame, Pierre from WorldSex, Patrick Terwee of The Hun, Cybercat’s Mark Galione, and Gallery Traffic Service’s Mark Hurson.
The most interesting element of the panel was Hurson singling out high-definition movies as the next movement, opining that the more powerful computers entering today’s marketplace will make such content not only desirable, but commonplace.
Commonplace was certainly no way to describe Friday evening’s soiree, the Mellow Yellow Party presented by The Hun, Cybercat, and Pussycash. The evening featured lush white carpets and beds, chocolate fountains, and DJs spinning from a pulpit high above the crowd in the domed former church adjoining the Renaissance Hotel. Did I forget to mention gorgeous women?
Gorgeous women.
Conversely, there were few gorgeous women, or women of any kind, on Friday’s panels: content, processing, and state of the industry. Much of the conversation focused on that industry buzzword, convergence.
It’s popular sport for webmasters to take shots at video producers’ online endeavors, or lack thereof, but some believe it’s only a matter of time before all video companies fully enter the online marketplace.
“I think [the difference between online and brick-and-mortar adult entertainment] is changing,” says photographer Max Candy. “Entertainment is entertainment in its various different forms. I think we’re very close to convergence.”
Content producer Charlie Markham of Paul Markham Content agreed, “In the future, I think the big competition for the online producers is going to be the Wickeds and the Vivids of the world. They have extraordinarily deep pockets.”
Of course, not everyone is sold on the idea. RealityCash and GFY owner Joe Lensman says he doesn’t think video producers’ content can be effectively repurposed for the Web because it doesn’t cater to a specific group.
Saturday, and the show, were brought to a stunning conclusion courtesy of Interclimax’s SinCineac Party. Claudia Van Lubek, Ben Jelloun, and the rest of the Interclimax gang demonstrated that they not only know how to throw a rousing party, but that Amsterdam has no shortage of talented strippers.
Man, that hash was good
And so was four days in Amsterdam, at least for Webmaster Access.
Event organizer Eric Matis says the event will return to the city in 2006 and most likely be held at the Renaissance Hotel again. Of course, he said the same thing after the Webmaster Access show held in Montreal earlier this year, only to be wooed to Toronto for 2006. So don’t make your plans just yet.
Regardless of where the shows are held, the recurring theme in their success seems to be the local adult infrastructure.
Matis credited The Hun, which calls Amsterdam home, for helping coordinate much of Webmaster Access Europe.
“We couldn’t have done it without them,” he says.
