ABC News, 1/12/08 - Every year as the world's largest gadget show cools off, the exhibition hall merely feet away heats up with the combined power of porn purveyors, the starlets they feature and the lustful gazes of the fans that line up to see them at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.

Half Renaissance fair (read: a lot of bizarre costumes and exposed cleavage), half sex shop on steroids, the show attracted seemingly thousands of men Thursday, just 30 minutes after the doors opened. As the distinct scent of marijuana smoke wafted through the air, fans mingled with industry veterans, lining up for photos and autographs in a snakey maze of giant booths devoted to the lucrative art of selling sex — or at least sexual fantasy.

The annual fan show precedes an awards show on Saturday for the adult entertainment industry in Las Vegas.

For Terri Ann Daniels, an executive assistant and model at AbbyWinters.com, an Australian site with a primarily American audience, her first visit to the show was a somewhat surprising one.

Shocked by the crowds that gathered at her company's booth — "we're amazed at how popular we are" — Daniels was even more surprised by the coverage; the company showed up on a popular blog within 19 minutes of the show's limited opening earlier this week.

"Since most of the market is in the U.S., we wanted to build up our market in the industry," Daniels said after she and nine of the site's models did a yoga show in a large fake-grass-lined booth in their bras and underwear. "This is the best place to start off."

Although Daniels' booth was noticeable — a large green space carved out in the middle of a show floor inked from floor to ceiling primarily in neon colors — it paled in comparison to the presence of porn behemoths like Vivid Entertainment and Hustler Home Video, which featured multiple porn stars, an occasional mainstream celebrity (Dave Navarro was expected to appear) and various shades of hot pink, red and black.

But the Consumer Electronics Show and the expo don't just share convention space, they also share a similar audience — one that is young and male. CES attendees lined the show's entranceway with cameras in hand, hoping to catch a shot of the bevy of scantily clad women who passed. At the same time, security guards pushed away voyeurs who got too close or lingered too long.

James and Joshua Ready, two brothers from Seattle who also attended CES, said attending the porn show was more about the scene — cute girls in wild costumes — than the industry.

"We really just come for the fun," James Ready, 26, said after posing in a photo with a well-endowed woman that he said he thought was cute. "[It's] basically girls and fun."

Joshua Ready, an amateur photographer, said he came because of the great photos he can get in the circuslike atmosphere.

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Adult Entertainment Expo 2007

Los Angeles Daily News, 1/14/07, LAS VEGAS - With the red carpet, swank ball gowns and hang-around rock musicians, the Adult Video News Awards could almost fit seamlessly into the cavalcade of nonstop honor fests that come around this time of year.

Likened to the Oscars and flashy like the Grammys, tonight's extravaganza at the Mandalay Bay has one key difference: the Academy Awards, at least as of yet, do not have a category for Most Outrageous Sex Scene. The adult industry's blowout fete features all the trappings of its mainstream cousins but still retains a bit of the outlaw flair that makes it enticing to legions of consumers.

Though Paul Fishbein, president of Chatsworth-based AVN and creator of the 24-year-old awards, invited celebrities like Gene Simmons and sold tickets to the general public for the first time this year, he doesn't want to fully strip off the veneer of mystery of the porn business.

"We don't want it to be too mainstream because you take the sexuality out," Fishbein said. "We want it to be a little forbidden, like, 'Oooh, it's the porn awards, but there's going to be some famous people there."

Former Red Hot Chili Pepper Dave Navarro will present, while rock group Buckcherry, who Fishbein repeatedly notes has been nominated for a Grammy, will perform.

And the talent itself, with names like Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick and Ron Jeremy, is getting pretty familiar in many households.

That thin line between provocative and verboten has been carefully straddled for several days at AVN's Adult Entertainment Expo, not far down the Las Vegas Strip at the Sands Expo Convention Center. A hybrid trade show/consumer showcase, the convention drew tens of thousands from around the world, saying shocking things in a fairly innocuous setting.

At Patrick's Thursday night shindig at the Tao nightclub in the Venetian casino, co-hosted with her husband and co-performer Evan Seinfeld, photographers jockeyed for arrival shots just as they would at the Golden Globes or a Hollywood premiere.

The stars showed up in revealing evening wear, but when one suffered a bit of a wardrobe malfunction and found herself spilling from her tight pink dress, two harrumphing handlers quickly stepped in to instruct her to button up before she got in trouble. She apologized profusely and strapped herself back in as the cameras continued to click.

The party inside was loud and mysterious, filled with sexily dressed young women, but it was no stranger than the scene in a Friday night Hollywood dance club. Dustin "Screech" Diamond, the child actor turned sex tape star, was sighted chatting amiably at the bar.

The four days of prep work, inking distribution deals, smiling for the press, chatting with fans, culminates tonight with the show.

Fishbein expects the 2,000 tickets made available to the public for $100 apiece will sell out, further broadening the industry's appeal.

He said while larger companies like Vivid Video and Wicked Pictures probably don't need an award to boost their sales, a smaller studio or nascent performer can receive some measure of credibility once they take home a trophy.

"I don't take too much stock in the awards, but if I did win, more people would know about me," said Sasha Grey, an 18-year-old performer nominated for the coveted Best New Starlet award.

In the porn world, as well as the mainstream, this is a very big deal. Jameson and Patrick both won the title in years past and went onto become titans of the business. Their looks and onscreen enthusiasm pushed them to become wealthy, marketable stars who can just as easily appear in regular television and films as they can with their clothes off.

"I get embarrassed. It's like, 'You like that? Really?"' said Jesse Jane, a contract star for Van Nuys-based Digital Playground and past winner for an all-girl sex scene and presenter at this year's show. "It's funny, though. Everyone pretends like they don't want to win, but I think they really do."

Indeed, agreed Oren Cohen, president of Van Nuys' Tight Fit Productions. Though the heavily-tattooed former chef, a third-generation pornographer, has plenty of uncomplimentary things to say about his industry, he still grins about the awards.

"Every kid likes getting a (freaking) trophy, so I like that pat on the head," he said. "You gloat, advertise you won and enjoy it for a year. We're making a product for people to enjoy, so it's nice to get a little feedback that they do."

30,000 Attend the Adult Entertainment Expo

BBC News, 1/14/07 - Thirty thousand people have gathered in the US city of Las Vegas for the annual convention of the pornography industry.

The scale of the Adult Entertainment Expo reflects the huge growth in a business which is said to be bigger than Hollywood and worth $57bn (£29bn).

Estimates of its annual contribution to the US economy range from $12bn-$20bn.

One of the reasons for its recent success is the pioneering use of new technology - video on the internet and use of moving images on mobile phones.

The BBC's Guto Harri in Las Vegas says it is easy to be embarrassed at such a show, with explicit films, intimidating toys and hundreds of half-naked actors on display.

But the scale and seriousness of the convention is not that different to a more mainstream gathering because pornography is big business, our correspondent says.

Adult entertainment model Jasmine Mai told the BBC: "The adult industry is bigger than every professional sport combined. It's part of life - it's mainstream now."

Embracing new technology has been critical to the industry's development, and has allowed people to access it more easily and more discreetly, bringing in new customers.

Adult entertainment helped determine the dominance of VHS over Beta, it was crucial in the development of video on the web, and is now pioneering moving images on mobile phones.

There are an estimated 200 pornographic films shot in the United States every week. Improving production and distribution methods has helped to cut costs.

Our correspondent says many people regard pornography with disgust, but mainstream entertainment has and will continue to benefit from the technical innovations of the shameless people who are in Nevada this weekend.

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