Europe is a whole other ballgame, or, at least Adult Online Europe is.
After attending just about every adult show on this green earth, one becomes accustomed to some things: hangovers, sleep deprivation, robust bar tabs, flip-flops, XXX Jay’s red state/blue state shirt, etc.
Nearly none of those things was evident at the 2006 annual spring edition of AOE, held from April 23 to 26 in Berlin. Instead, this traveler found a refreshingly professional atmosphere. Suits replaced flip-flops and T-shirts (although the overcast weather made T-shirts a bad idea anyway). Evening cocktail hours replaced all-night debauch fests. And for entertainment value, Naughty America’s Dusty L replaced the aforementioned XXX Jay. Nothing replaced his red state/blue state shirt, though, which left me a little lost—and a little confused.
Nonetheless, I dusted off the German I learned in high school (the language I thought I’d never use) and dove in. Most-used phrase: sprechen sie English? My German teacher would be proud.
AOE is held in conjunction with mainstream mobile show World Telemedia, which certainly has something to do with the atmosphere as well. In short, AOE and World Telemedia were clearly “business first.” If you’re serious about Europe and its opportunities, then this was definitely the place to be.If you’re serious about information, there was plenty of that, too, with concurrent seminar tracks running for each show, featuring a cornucopia of information about the mobile marketplace—including dating, gambling, mobile TV, and music.
Yeah, the Europeans are most definitely still kicking our North American asses in the mobile space.
With heavyweights like U.K.-based mobile operations Opera Telecom and Bango and gambling power Golden Palace on hand, AOE and World Telemedia weren’t just lineups of your usual suspects, either.
At AOE, the ins and outs of webmastering were also on parade with seminars about blogging, affiliate programs, webcams, the German marketplace, billing, and attorney Chad Belville’s look at the all-American issues of 2257 and dot-xxx and how foreign webmasters should work with them.
All of this professionalism, information sharing, and business-doing isn’t the entire story, though. There most certainly won’t be an adult show anywhere that doesn’t include some partying. And so, AOE began Sunday evening with SexMoney, Commerce Gate, and PX24’s Webmaster Warm-Up Party at Trompete. Early evening cocktail hours followed on Monday and Tuesday, with late-night activities at the discretion of the attendee.
Want clubs? Berlin has a few of those. Want to chill? The Maritim Hotel bar will do just fine.
Jet lag aside (and my current state of affairs tell me this is one monster case of jet lag), AOE, World Telemedia, and Berlin produced a superior combination.
AOE’s annual fall show takes place in Budapest this year from Nov. 8-12.
