The expo itself:
Okay, everybody seemed to acknowledge the elephant in the convention hall and this pink elephant was that the size of the expo had shrunk a second consecutive year. Less exhibitors and girls would suggest that porn has been in an economic downturn but the decrease in fan attendance must be a reflection of the general economy. The only day the expo was very busy was on Saturday so this issue can not be good for the organizer of the expo, who supposedly just came out of bankruptcy.
But for me the decrease in size was a boon as I could photograph what I needed to photograph at my own leisured pace and take the time to have catch-up conversations with friends that I haven't seen since last year. Of course, the length of these conversations with some of the prettier people piss off other attendees on the board but we didn't give a fuck when a) I either stood in line or b) was called over by the girl.
As for the exhibiting booths, Elegant Angel had the best booth in terms of girls, fan reception, and layout while Evil Angel was probably second best based on the same criteria. The most disappointing and probably worst booth in terms of fan accessibility was Wicked Pictures.* This had nothing to do with how their girls interacted with the fans since starlets like jessica drake, Kirsten Price, and Kaylani Lei have been deservedly known to be great with the fans. It was because the booth did not stagger their girls having them sign at all show hours and instead had them all together at once for 3 hours and then shuffling them off to some event off-site. What compounded the problem was that the group would also show up late for their scheduled signings and stopped signing much earlier than they were scheduled to leave. This problem along with Wicked using a snake queued line layout for the first time explains why there are less pictures of the Wicked booth.
*Note: Yeah, sure Vivid never shows up on a Sunday, but I wasn't expecting much from them.
The most organized booth was Digital Playground which easily made it the best feature company booth. Adella and Niki, the publicists, ran a system that catered to both to the trade attendees (including press) and fans in providing time. Evil Angel also ran a similar system.
As for specific girls, Sasha Grey probably had the busiest line while the girls of Elegant Angel drew the hordes in general.
Convention pictures on flickr
The social scene:
The main reason I keep showing up to these events is seeing old friends again and making new ones.
In probably the sign of the apocalypse, traffic at the mecca of the event's networking, the Venetian circle bar decreased with most of the porn people staying at the Palazzo hotel. Malte and I still enjoyed drinking our beers and carousing with the regulars but my fingers were slow on the trigger to capture some of the debauchery that still happened at the bar like 1) our favourite drunk New Jersey guidette Taryn Thomas making it obvious she wasn't wearing panties. 2) My favourite Jersey girl, Natalie Norton, insisted that I grope her new boobs while I was petitioning her for some wingman pity sex (since I was Malte's wingman) which led to drunk strangers asking for a turn. 3) Hell, the most face time I had with a Wicked girl (see above) was watching a drunk Alektra Blue constantly falling out of her top at the Palazzo circle bar.
Most of my nights consisted either of drinking, hanging out and eating with Spiegler and his Spieglergirls, or engaging in some personal photo projects of several girls with Malte's help. We had our share of scheduling headaches though but no hangovers.
Here is Angelica Raven by the way who was a myspace pen pal for several years before we finally met this year:
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My trip culminated in a dinner two hours before my flight with Gazzman and his lovely g/f, Spieglergirls, and Francesca Le & Mark Wood.
Awards
I decided not to shoot the red carpet this year because I was tired of getting my face elbowed in by the other pornorazzi. Whether this decision is a permanent one or just a temporary break is still up in the air.

Instead, with Malte's help, I set a proper family portrait of the Spieglergirls before the awards which I hope would be a yearly thing. Bobbi Starr got upset at being left out so I told Mark he could photoshop in any missing people he wanted including Marie Luv.
Special thanks go to
Ultimate wingman and lighting assistant Malte, Angelica, Katie St. Ives, Ava Rose, Cali Logan, and of course the Shylock for making the trip another annual fun-filled event.
Also thanks to Cuddly Wombat and Aiden's boyfriend to further contributing to my alcoholism.
Edited to add twitter link and general copyediting and more thanks.
Edited by - morbidthoughts on Jan 13 2010