This week I attended my first ever tradeshow, Webmaster Access West, and had an absotely amazing time. Start to finish, this show was productive, informative, and enjoyable.

Shows have never turned me on much as my impression was always that I can fuel all of my projects with purchased traffic if I understand how to effectively use it. Unfortunately, this resulted me in not actively pursuing contacts in the industry. Recently, I have been trying to really take my business to the next level, and I thought that attending a show would be a good idea. My only regret is that I did not attend a show earlier.

I made massive amounts of contacts at the show and everyone I encountered was extremely helpful. Attending was the best investment of time and money that I have made recently, and I have already seen a big return on my investment.

The show started on Wednesday night with the Porn Poker Tour. I’m not much of a poker player, but the tournament served as an excellent networking opportunity. Oh yeah, and there was an open bar. Obviously, I lost all of my chips after about an hour.

On Thursday, Epoch was hosting its tenth anniversary party, which was one of the best and most productive parties I have been to in quite a while. The party was on the Universal Studios lot, and many big players in the industry were there. Wolfgang Puck’s restauraunt catered the event, so the food was great. There is nothing quite like being able to munch on Lobster quesadillas when you get the drunken munchies after having too many martinis.

I ran into XXX Jay, whom I frequently blogstalk, at the party, as well as a bunch of program owners who were helpful and supportive. I also met Ramone from Monsters of Cock, who appeared to really enjoy having a twenty minute conversation with me about how the fuck he has such a massive cock. Ramone was super nice and great to hang out with for a while. He has a new site he is launching soon, and I am going to be sure to plug the hell out of it.

I staggered out of the Epoch party around midnight and made my way back to the hotel to catch a cab with a friend to Lucky Strike in Hollywood for another party. I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of the people behind some big companies like Sextoy Dave, another person I frequently blogstalk. Dave was rolling deep with about ten super hot ladies (as is his style always). I also ran into Poppy from Jupiter Hosting who is super cool as well.

Late at night, I ran into Casey Parker, a Shane’s World contract star. It was a pretty funny encounter because I actually met her at a bar in Hollywood a couple months ago. At the time, her body language suggested that she definitely did not believe that I was in the adult industry, regardless of the fact that I gave her a card, and things ended up being a little awkward. When I said hi at the Lucky Strike party I was sure to give her a hard time about not believing me. Apparently, attending an industry event was enough evidence to prove my involvement in the industry, and she was much nicer than she was when I met her previously. Casey’s site is going to be launching soon, and it’s going to be huge. She is super hot and very sweet at the same time.

Friday was the show finale with an absoutely amazing party at the Playboy Mansion followed by an afterparty at Falcon in Hollywood. The Playboy Mansion party was quite possibly the best party I have ever been to. Too Short performed, but it was hard to pay attention because I was pretty distracted by all of the hot Playboy models walking around wearing nothing but some body paint. The afterparty was much more productive and business-oriented, which made it a great way to end the night. It was great to be at the Playboy Mansion and I am definitely excited about going again next year!

By the time 2am came, I was pretty drunk, but I got my friends together for a last round of Jager shots, which put me over the edge. Staggering out of the club, I managed to remember that there was already a party going on at my place, and extended a couple invites to my good friends. We ended up getting back to my place around 3am, and I ended up staying up until just before 6am.

The seminars at the show were somewhat helpful, but I got the most out of simply introducing myself to everyone that I encountered. When you push traffic around, it is easy to avoid face-to-face contact with program owners as I have done, but it is extremely helpful being able to put a face on all of the emails and ICQ conversations that I have with program owners, and also establish good relationships with them.

Webmaster Access was a great experience for me, and I am looking forward to attending more shows in the coming months.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 11th, 2006 at 7:59 pm and is filed under Porn Happenings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.