interNEXT 2020 Receives Warm Welcome at Sahara

LAS VEGAS—Colin Allerton found value on the final leg of his marathon trip to Vegas this year, reflecting on what turned into a productive interNEXT Expo. The vice president of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based online retail juggernaut, Adult Empire, brought a team of four to the all-new Sahara Hotel for the 23rd annual affiliate expo—and he will be back in 2021. “We definitely brought on new business at the show,” Allerton told AVN Monday. “This has been great as a venue.” Allerton kicked back in the CrakRevenue Business Lounge, which was the official interNEXT meeting spot in the center bar area of the Sahara. The stylish space became the central hub of the conference, where attendees from all over the world enjoyed cocktails and coffee with their conversation in a comfortable, relaxed setting. “To me, this space is perfect,” Allerton continued. “It’s right next to the elevators. The bathroom is right there, the bar is right here. Starbucks is over there—all the pieces are perfect. “We did a lot of good business yesterday and today. We’ll be coming back next year and we’ll do it again.” Allerton, who was less than 48 hours removed from finding out Adult Empire won its 13th AVN Award for Best Web Retail Store at the 2020 AVN Awards Show Saturday night at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, said he got so busy with his networking at interNEXT that he didn’t even have time to see any of the educational seminars. “And that’s a good thing,” Allerton added, noting that he would’ve attended seminars if he didn’t have so many conversations happening as he traversed the show floor. “It’s been fantastic from my perspective and the same with my team. I was talking about that with everyone earlier. I spoke to Daniel, Scott and Jesse and they were all like, ‘This is awesome.’ “It’s a great change from what it was last year.” Allerton said the key was the Sahara Hotel’s layout—with everything in close proximity. “I talked to a couple of people who told me it was their first time at a show and they came here and they met a bunch of people,” Allerton said. “Because it’s so condensed … and this room [CrakRevenue Business Lounge] is what’s pulling it together. You can just go here and meet people and it turns into a perfect networking opportunity.” Produced by The GFY Team, the original adult industry tech conference was the epicenter of the adult tech world Sunday through Wednesday morning at the newly reimagined Sahara, which was formerly known as SLS Las Vegas. Last summer SLS re-branded to its original iconic name—Sahara—after more than $150 million in remodeling upgrades that included renovated hotel rooms, suites and corridors, an updated gaming lounge, a luxurious spa and completely revamped lobby. The Sahara also features state-of-the-art hotel registration systems, a well-appointed contemporary lounge and a 60,000 square-foot casino floor with an array of glamorous touches. Ezra Kamer, chief technical officer for adult studio heavyweight Jules Jordan Video, told AVN he especially enjoyed the Execs International Pay-site Roundtable Sunday. Sam Rakowski, president of Mr. Skin, launched the recurring power gathering at interNEXT 2019. “It’s the best minds in adult in one room sharing our ideas,” Kamer, an L.A. native with more than 25 years in adult, said Monday. “There was about 20 of us there. It’s also good that it’s not too big. And everybody got a chance to talk.” Kamer said their flagship site JulesJordan.com has made significant strides on combatting piracy in recent years, utilizing finger-printing software that enables his team to track down bad actors. “Like if I find a video on a tube I know which one of our members uploaded it,” Kamer said. “So a lot of people wanted to hear about that. That’s what I really focused on in 2019 was the piracy and it helps our revenue because people have to pay to see our clips.” Among the topics discussed at this year’s Pay-site Roundtable were how to generate secondary revenue and what they called a “website tear-down.” During the tear-down, some of the execs displayed their sites for all to see via a projector so they could offer insight and analysis of their processes and best practices. “We would go in the members area and say, ‘Look, we’re doing things this way. This is why we’re doing this,’” said Kamer, who will celebrate 10 years with AVN Hall of Fame producer/director Jules Jordan in May. Prior to joining Jordan, Kamer worked for Wicked Pictures for eight years and also Atlas Multimedia. He was a technical theatre major in college who taught himself how to code. “I was around at these shows when I was with Atlas but when I was with Wicked that wasn’t my role. Then when I left there it came to be my role again but what was interesting was all the people that I knew were almost all gone,” said Kamer, who noted that JJV runs a “lean and mean” tech staff. “It’s me and I have two guys doing content with me.” Another interNEXT regular who pointed to the Pay-site Roundtable as one of the highlights was two-time AVN Male Performer of the Year James Deen. Deen came to the first one last January inside the Penthouse Suite at the Paradise Tower in Hard Rock Hotel. “I’ve attended all of them, except for one which was in Lisbon [Portugal],” Deen said. “Those are always great for many reasons. More than anything it’s almost guaranteed value for the show. If I do no business. If I got nothing accomplished here and if I just showed up and did the pay-site meetup, it would be worth it. “Being able to sit in a room with people who are my peers, but not my peers. Some people have small networks like me. Some people have medium-sized companies and you’re also sitting in there with Team Skeet and Kink and Blacked. So the owner of Blacked is in there. [LetsDoeIt] and MetArt. Mindgeek went to the one in Prague.” Deen continued, “I’m not a big network. I’m very happy with the way everything’s going. Let’s keep on the same track but I’m not Gamma … so when one of the owners of Gamma and I are sitting there having a conversation that’s huge value for me to learn from anything from them. “Every time I go to those it makes me feel like more and more I know what I’m doing and I belong here.” Deen, who will surpass 16 years in porn in March and still is only 33 years old, told AVN about 98 percent of his business comes from his robust web presence that is anchored by his affiliate program FPNCash—with JamesDeen.com as the flagship site and other hardcore destinations such as Analized.com, YourMomDoesPorn and DTFSluts contributing to his bottom line. FPNCash—or Full Porn Network—is Deen’s baby. “Full Porn Network is a more grandiose project that I’m working on,” Deen said. “The idea is to effectively create a user experience where people can piecemeal what products they want within a larger scale app as opposed to being just a site, just a site, just a site. … It’s just V1 right now, so it’s just Full Porn Network. “It isn’t even really being advertised. And that is a site management tool that controls all the sub-sites and sub rights. Instead of having a CMS and having that manage all the different sites we have a CMS that we manage one site with. And then with that one site we can control all the different sub-brands.” Deen said that he knew early on that becoming relevant on the web would secure his future. “My career trajectory has always been I want to do porn, get in, be a performer, build a name, start directing, start producing, create my own company, start moving into more of that CEO/businessman, company owner role; and then have my own little corner of pornography carved out where it’s like this is my little porn world,” Deen said. “Once I went out to interNEXT for the first time I was like, ‘Oh wow, this is how I do that. This is how I’m able to create that company and that long-term business plan and build a business strategy so that I’m able to survive when I’m 65-70 years old. Because as much as I’d like to perform forever—I’ll be 34 in February—and I can even tell and feel a difference in my ability to perform at the same level that I used to, when I was doing two, three, four or five scenes a day… “That’s my goal for 2020…I’m trying to cut my scenes down to only three scenes a week and take two vacations.” Deen lauded Kink.com CEO Alison Boden, who last week during at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo invited performers to the Kink Model Appreciation suite in the Casino Tower at Hard Rock. Boden handed out Kink swag and got to know several of the talent better during the meetups.  She also gave out her own personal cell phone number to each performer who attended, encouraging them to call her if they ever had a concern about something on or off set. She said the gesture was to further back up Kink’s Code of Conduct for best practices on their sets. “It was great,” Boden told AVN. “There were so many good conversations happening. I got to know some incredible people who I didn’t know personally yet.” Boden continued, “We go out of our way—all of our directors do—to place our performers first. With BDSM you have to work really hard. There are already people who are putting their bodies on the line for our content and our company. So we wanted to follow up to say ‘thanks.’” TNV Eric, the Southern California-based owner of TNVGirls.com, made the rounds at interNEXT promoting his fetish-themed, girl-next-door content and his soon-to-be-launched new site, NextDoorSins.com. The new site will combine hundreds of scenes from his popular Clips4Sale fetish stores that include Stripping Fun & Games, Oral Fixations, Taboo Treats, Girlfriend Videos and Bondage Babes. “These stores on Clips4Sale are doing quadruple the business as TNV Girls, so we’re taking all the content from the last seven years from these stores and launching NextDoorSins.com, so it’ll be more explicit than TNV Girls but the same kind of quality. It should be launched by the end of Q1. “It’s been a long time coming to parlay the success of the Clips4Sales stores into one giant umbrella under one roof.” Eric, who is a seasoned aerospace engineering consultant by day, launched TNV Girls in 2003, while Thursday Night Video—inspired by the college girls on 6th street near the campus of the University of Texas—started in 1998. “We’re probably going to start with 80 scenes and it’ll be 200 by the year’s end,” Eric said. “TNV Girls was the most requested studio on HotMovies for many years. We have a good history.” Leonardo Wang, whose sex doll business is based in Shenzen, China, with an additional office in Irvine, Calif., came to interNEXT for the first time this week to promote his lifelike Miss Doll product. Talking over the delicious buffet lunch provided for interNEXT attendees, Wang said his goal is to “create a new standard for sex toys.” He started Miss Doll Corporation in 2018; previously he worked on sex robots. Wang said his professional background includes experience in telecommunications, engineering and product designing. “And then I got to robot and then come to this industry because I love it,” Wang told AVN, adding that he had a booth at the 2019 AVN Show, where he was demonstrating his sex robot.  “I gave people the new concept—the voice concept and VR synchronization, but everything was not ready. After that show people gives me great attention. They come to me, ‘Hey I want to be your wholesaler in US. I want to be your wholesaler in Canada, Brazil something like that.’ I say thank you.” Wang continued, “I do not want to follow anybody. Then I keep developing with one year of silence and then I was finished very close to this show [interNEXT].”Wang said due to the Chinese New Year he was not able to finish mass production of his doll in time for the show. “I just come with a video and talk to different bosses from video makers and talk to them about my concepts,” he said. “I have this idea for five years in my mind.” He will unveil a Miss Doll by March that includes new technology. “The major difference is a recent launched feature about body heating,” Wang said. “For doll lying on their back when you touch it, you should feel temperature, right. Or else it will feel just like a dead body.” He said the older technology for heating the body was burdened by many problems. “The controlling system always goes something wrong and the body goes on fire, which causes damages,” Wang said. “We got the reports from customers at the first beginning so I start to…now we have things ready. “I use a different system to warm the body up. No one single accident happen. … What makes us different is new ideas. We don’t want to do anything that’s similar to the others." Wang’s company has a place in China—near a factory where 150,000 mostly male workers make iPhones and iPads—where you can come and have sex with his Miss Doll for $40 an hour. AVN nominated VR producer/director Anna Lee, who owns 2049Entertainment.com, demonstrated some of her VR content at interNEXT. Lee, who is based in Vancouver, told AVN she would like more people to know what kind of work she’s capable of as a content producer and “and what I believe in as a content producer and where I’m trying to go.” “I’m telling everybody exactly how I shot it, what I shot it with and I’m not hiding anything because I really feel as a collective, if we start making content like this then it will benefit us all in the long run,” Lee said in the CrakRevenue Executive Lounge. “You’ll want to actually be in VR. Because everything I feel that’s being made right now—although it’s good—you can watch on Pornhub. You don’t need to put on a headset. But with this, you can’t get this feeling. You can’t. You have to put a headset on. I wish more people would do that.” Lee, who had a recent demo of superstar Tera Patrick, said she endeavors to shoot content that is “engaging” and “really pushes the envelope from a tech perspective.” “But also gives girls a platform…It’s non-binary. I’m really into inclusivity and really creating a safe space for women,” Lee added. “It’s like, ‘What empowers you? What makes you feel sexy?’ That’s what we’re doing. So let’s work together. “Because what the world needs is real intimacy. Everyone wants to feel wanted.” Lee was named the top VR producer of 2019 in a recent article in Forbes for her "Black Box Collection” series.