XBIZ Summer FORUM VEGAS, The Pictures, from F.U.B.A.R.

[RawAlex]

Many of you know here that I had in the past attended shows on a very regular basis, and had a (minor) hand in the running of some shows in the past (particularly helping out on the cybernet shows in Montreal).

The show business hit a wall a couple of years ago, with way too many events, way too many hangers on, and way too much bullcrap in general. Most of the shows declined because the big wigs are nowhere to be found (they no longer want to mix with the masses), and the shows themselves became a bit of a joke. It turned into a chance for a bunch of surfmasters to mooch free drinks and drool on porn girls, and for program reps to get drunk and throw stuff off of balconies.

I attended the Vegas show(s) in January, spending some time hanging around in the AEE show (thanks to Bangwang for the comfortable seat with a view) and then went to the webmaster show at the hard rock (thanks to AK from Dating Gold for the pass). The Hard Rock show pretty much clued me in that if anything, the AVN style shows have gotten worse. It was hard to find people, it was hard to get business done, and many companies and their friends were in fact hiding out in skyboxes ignoring the world. Only a few companies like DG were open to having signficant numbers of visitors in their world.

I however made a grand playing poker at the MGM, and the airfare and whatnot was cheap.

It also appears that AVN is getting seriously hurt by XBIZ shows. Normally by this time of the year the Florida show is the talk of everyone in the industry, for the moment it seems to be a afterthought on some boards, rarely mentioned otherwise.

Cybernetexpo appears (I haven't attended) to have turned the corner and made the shows more relevant again, getting people together and giving them the chances to interact. It appears to once again get the top people and the bottom together in one place, which allows things to happen.