Porn Valley- I had a conversation with Ed from Dane Productions this week and he wasn’t too happy about his company’s situation at the recent trade show in Vegas. Particularly the non-resolution of it.
Ed took a booth, and the day before the AEE show- Tuesday- he was there for the set up and to make sure the talent signing for him had their rooms, etc. He had paid for the booth in full and noted that there was a lounge area across from it, thinking, this was a good thing. He went to dinner around 8:30 that night believing God’s in heaven, all’s right with the world.
Not really. Wednesday morning he arrived to discover that a tour bus pulled in across from him. The bus was part of a promotion belonging to Brett Rockman but Ed says Brett wasn’t the problem. He was very nice. AVN was the problem. Seeing that Rockman’s tour bus was cutting off access to his own booth, Ed went to the AVN people and asked if something could be done.
“No one could make a decision on this,” says Ed, being told Janet Gibson was the one to go to for final arbitration.
Meanwhile Ed’s growing impatient and Gibson’s nowhere to be found although he heard someone talking to her on a walkie talkie.
“Apparently she was busy all day,” he says.
Finally at 5:15 pm Ed was told he’d be moved but would have to pay the additional cost of it.
“I laughed in their face,” he says. “But they finally moved me and paid for it.” Except his booth was relocated to less than favorable geography and the entire show wound up being a bust for him.
“People couldn’t find us,” he said. “You’d have thought they’d put up a sign telling people where we relocated. But they didn’t. That might have cost them twenty-five bucks to do that.”
Ed says Wednesday was the key day for doing business-to-business and it was an obvious disaster.
In an ensuing e-mail with Gibson, Ed got a basically take it or leave it proposition from her for the next show. But that was the last he heard from her and Gibson has not returned any further communications.
“I’ve been going to this show for 11 years and I didn’t need to have this happen to me,” says Ed who felt like he was treated miserably.
“This is not the way to do business- running a my shit doesn’t stink operation.”
“I’ve never caused problems- I’ve always paid. This is not how you treat people.”