AEE Welcomes Curious Press
Diane Taylor -- Tradeshow Week, 1/18/2008 2:52:00 PM
Intl. CES may grab all the big headlines, but AVN Adult Entertainment Expo attracts far more press, proportionate to its size (estimated at 350 exhibitors and 32,000 professional attendees). Year after year, streams of curious journalists from publications as prestigious as the New York Times and Newsweek flock to the annual Las Vegas tradeshow for the pornography industry.
So, how does the relatively small show handle all the attention?
Two typists, a staff assistant and three contract PR professionals helped Entertainment Merchants Association’s Sean Devlin run the press room at this year’s AEE, held Jan. 8-12 at Sands Expo & Convention Center/Venetian Resort Hotel Casino. Devlin admitted this particular press room is a “wild ride,” hosting everyone from CNN to adult entertainment reporters (some are performers) with names TSW Las Vegas can’t print.
Home Entertainment Events, a joint venture of Questex Media Group & Entertainment Merchants Assn., produces AEE under license from Adult Video News (AVN). Questex manages the exhibition, and Entertainment Merchants Assn. takes care of educational content and press relations.
Five months before the 2008 AEE, Devlin’s office e-mails the previous year’s credentialed press and announces pre-registration. For 2008, 800 press were approved for pre-registration. Unlike CES, whose pre-registered members of the press are inundated with news releases, AEE does not circulate press lists. Pre-registered press for AEE only receives news of the event from Home Entertainment Events. (One of the press mailings for 2008 was a 47-page list of talent at the event.)
“Every year, we have some 600 to 700 on-site press registrations,” Devlin said. “Some simply forget to pre-register; some are in Las Vegas for CES and decide the adult show would be ‘interesting.’ (Not all those people are granted credentials.) And many are part of film crews that are hired late, but need credentials.”
Blaine Personnel temporary typist Andrea Loftus reported that, as in 2007 (when she also worked the press room), 2008 press attendees had an international flavor. “This industry clearly is thriving throughout the world,” she said. “Name a country, and we seemed to have adult news reporters from that country.”
Contract public relations veteran Martin Blythe hosted mainstream media crews attending AEE. He called the adult industry “the most underreported large industry” in the country. Nonetheless, for 2008, he hosted crews from CBS, CNN, CNBC, G4, Spike TV and MTV, among others.
As for unusual press room problems, lost or stolen badges were a frequent complaint, according to Devlin. Fans could attend AEE by paying an on-site fee of $80, so free press credentials were valuable.
Organizers caught –and subsequently kicked out – a group of men recycling badges and bracelets (also required for entry) by taking them from people leaving the show and reselling them to fans for $40.
Every day Devlin hosted a morning briefing for the press room staff, ending each session with a “word for the day.” Early on, that word was “energy,” but by the end of the show – after hours of hearing stories about why press credentials were absolutely necessary or a badge needed retyping because a real name (vs. a stage name) was on the badge – the word was “patience.”
And speaking of stage names, when TSW Vegas called Devlin to fact-check an item in this story, we found out the celebrities weren’t the only ones with alternative identities. Someone by a different name answered the call, and the 48-year-old husband, father and communicator with responsibilities other than AEE admitted: for AEE purposes only, Sean Devlin is his stage name.
