InterNext Diary, Las Vegas 2002 - Part I
At the beginning of this month (January 2002) I attended my first InterNext Expo in Las Vegas. For those you who are serious about your futures in the adult industry and have never been to an InterNext show, it’s a must-experience event. It’s basically the largest adult internet/audiotext tradeshow in the world.
January 4th – Arrival
My associate Dave and I arrive in Las Vegas’s McCarran International Airport around noon. After pulling an all nighter to catch our early morning flights we planned on heading to Caesar’s Palace and crashing, but that never happened. Upon taking care of a few errands the afternoon started to slip away, so we decided to pull through till the night and put ourselves back on schedule. That night we decided to hit up the champagne buffet at the Imperial Palace and enjoy endless drinking and semi-fresh food. About an hour and a half passes as we are plastered on champagne so we decide to head back to Caesar’s and make a few calls. We call up our friend Aaron Matthews and decide to meet him at the Shadow Bar located in our hotel. Aaron arrives at the bar around 10:30 with some friends: Kitty, Dino (railz), and Dr. Dreidel. After about an hour and a half of drinking and chatting I decide to head up to the room because I’m beat, but Dave decides to stay and chat. I get to my room and run into my other associate, James, who has just arrived. He showers and gets ready to meet up with everyone downstairs and I pass out.
January 5th – Traffic Seminar/Adult.com Gathering
I wake up around 9:30 thanks to my subconscious alarm clock just in time to get ready and head out to the traffic seminar put together by Traffic Dude. I pick my head up and look for Dave but he is nowhere to be found. Not sure what happened to him I head to the shower and start to get ready. After my shower I come out of the bathroom and see that Dave is back but in pretty rough shape. Upon asking him what the fuck happened to him he replies, “I don’t know.” Dave is standing there with his jeans split from one ankle, all the way up to his crotch and down to the other knee. We sit there for a few minutes and try to put the pieces together of Dave’s drunken blackout and find out not only are his pants ruined but also for some reason he checked into a room the Imperial Palace; the hotel receipt is in his pocket. To this day we aren’t sure what happened! Anyway so we rush to get ready and arrive a little late to the seminar. Dave being a wreck from the night before leaves shortly after we get there but I stayed for the remainder. GREAT SEMINAR! Learned a lot from Traffic Dude and some of the great guest speakers such as Colin Rowntree and YNOT Bob. This seminar was an add-on to the rest of the convention but it was well worth the extra $100.
Later on that night my associates and I headed out to the GFY/Adult.com gathering at their suite in the Venetian. Nice little party, got the meet Lensman and the rest of the Adult.com crew (thanks for the drinks guys!). Also met some other cool webmasters such as Greg from 4pics.com and Joe from Global Internet Billing.
After the gathering ended we weren’t quite ready to hit the sack so we met up with Colin Delia, DaddyT, and Naked Josh, some old friends of Dave’s. We did a little drinking and little gambling back at the Imperial Palace and then headed to bed (this time Dave made it back to Caesar’s!).
January 6th – The Expo Opens
Morning arrives (uh, actually early afternoon) and we finally make it out to the InterNext Expo floor. We walked around and checked out the booths, put some faces to some names, talked some business, chatted with the VoyeurDorm girls, picked up some free t-shirts and party passes, overall had a good time.
Later on that night we had some networking and partying to do so our first stop was the Sex in the Rain party at the Rain Nightclub in The Palms Resort & Casino, hosted by CCBill, SexKey.com, and Cavecreek Web Hosting. The exotic atmosphere was complimented nicely by the pyrotechnics above the dance floor and open bar.
Second party we went to was Red Light Asia at the Velvet Lounge in the Venetian. We had some trouble finding it at first and on the way ran into the X3 Scripts crew (really nice guys, was a pleasure meeting them). The club was nice but kinda crowded so we decided to leave and hit up WebmasterParty, hosted by InsiteAdult, NationalNet, and PayCounter. The location for this event was the Foundation Room at the very top of Mandalay Bay. All I can say was it was awesome. The setup was spectacular and the view of the strip was breathtaking. Those of you who didn’t make it missed out. While there we had a chance to chat with some of the TotemCash and ARS guys and also we ran into Dr. Dreidel again. Approaching the end of the party, a small group of us is still chatting on the balcony when we are approached by a strange guy who was listening to our conversation close by. He seemed to have his share of the drinks for the night and started talking to us about how he’s one of the ‘big names’ in the industry. Kinda wary of his claims we question him some more but don’t find out much. He gives us some, what seemed to him, priceless advice and leaves us with the name Jim Hanley (or something very similar, I had also been doing my share of drinking for the night!). Strange shit.
Party but arrive as everyone is leaving. Luckily though a few suites down the Making it another late night we try to catch the tail end of the TopBucks PornResource guys aren’t ready to crash either so we chill at their party for an hour or so then head to sleep.
