Quote:
Originally Posted by RawAlex
I did not attend, but based on comments here and elsewhere, here is a couple of things I gathered:
The biggest screwup in this whole deal is having the show floor in a licensed establishment. The idea is cool, the idea is great, but with Nevada's 21 year old drinking age, it pretty much kicks the crap out of a certain part of the business, from some webmasters or employees to talent. That is truly a huge negative in the deal. Some may take it as a plus as it "keeps the kiddies out", but in the end the kiddies pay the same price to get in and are legally allowed to be in the business.
Having stuff shoved off into skyboxes and whatnot meant that the flow of people wasn't as good as it could be. I am sure some companies got great exposure, and others got none at all.
I understand the concept, in the past AVN has lost a huge percentage of attendance to people who would just set up at the hotel bar / the round bar / whatever and work the show from there without ever paying to be in the event. They fixed this in Miami by doing a whole hotel takeover and being snotty about the badges, and in Vegas they are trying to fix it by taking over the hotel's biggest bar.
I haven't attended an AVN show since 2004, and I don't have any overwhelming urge to break my duck.
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A few thoughts;
1) the 21+ thing was pretty poorly handled, regardless. ID was required to get a badge to enter the show floor... but if you're me, apparently, the badge was not enough - I was asked several times to show my license to gain admittance to the floor, despite the lanyard badge I was wearing and myriad other people flooding in around me,
not being asked to verify age. In theory, I am flattered. In reality, I am annoyed. I had always presumed it was due to the number of open bars at these things.
2) The booths... I think the idea was to mirror the cabana idea at xBiz summer forum and the Miami show - the cabanas worked really well in that setting. In the club format, though, it was unfortunate that the higer-priced boxes were the most difficult to see and get to.
3) I've been to a number of shows, and so far, the Miami show was my most productive show, because it created a captive audience with no "outsiders." I knew anyone in that hotel was going to be someone I could or do work with, which made it much more effective with regard to meeting people and hashing things out for new directions.