BONDCON 2003
http://www.clubiniquity.com/2003/27.html#1 website Updated: 2001 |
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- BondCon 2003 Las Vegas -- A Wonderful Surprise
A bondage convention? What do you picture? A thousand drooling guys with cameras and 4 models around whom they swarm? Then think again. This Las Vegas premier event pretty much blew everyone away with the quality and exceeded almost every imaginable standard.
First, a little bit of history regarding the most crowded week of the year in Las Vegas. Originally, there was ONE convention which overwhelmed LV in the beginning of January every year: the CES Convention, which stands for Computer Electronics Show. The CES was THEE place for both wholesalers and retailers to find out the absolute latest news in America about what kinds of gadgetry would be available in the coming year. Needless to say, capitalizing on tens of thousands of horny business men became the focus for the regular businesses of Las Vegas during that week.
Then someone clever decided they could further capitalize WITHIN the CES by adding a little section to the VCR / VHS area of the CES, namely an area that sold Porn. To help stimulate the draw, various Porn stars attended this sub-section, or "Adult Area," to further gain the attention of the many men by signing autographs and posing for pictures. As time went on, this "Adult Area" grew in size and scope to become an actual area for those within the Porn industry to network.
Eventually the "Adult Area" became large enough in the late 90's to break away and become it's own convention put on by the top name in Porn Movie Review, AVN (Adult Video News). The AVN convention flourished, providing a separate-but-simultaneous convention dedicated to the Porn industry in it's many aspects. "Industry-Only" hours were set wherein only those who worked in Porn in one fashion or another could meet and talk on the AVN convention floor, before the Public Hours where zillions of fans (ok, basically men) could swarm the floor. AVN instigated their infamous Awards Ceremony ("Best Blow Job" "Best All-Sex Video" etc.) within the same convention, and the paparazzi came out to photograph the starlets in all their effulgent glory.
THE FETISH ELEMENT was always present at the AVN in a corner here or there, and Bondage & S/M videos had their own little booths, though always dwarfed by the enormous booths of the big name Vanilla Porn companies. In the last few years, right beside the increasing appearance of Fetish Clubs and activities around America, so too did the presence of Fetish at the AVN grow, bit by bit, drop by drop. No longer merely one or two booths, several mainstream Porn companies even started generating a Fetish line once in a while. Still, the Fetish sector only amounted to maybe 10-15% of the total booth presence at the AVN, growing little by little each year.
Well once again we have the big event spawning a small event (more or less). BONDCON actually first appeared as a tiny New York event about 3 years ago put together by a few videomakers within the Bondage (Damsel-in-Distress) video genre. Moderately successful, apparently the organizers had a split, and a West Coast faction developed. Simply and smartly, the West Coast organizers brilliantly realized the value of adding their name to the roster of Las Vegas' busiest week, and thence came BONDCON 2003, for the first time ever in Las Vegas.
Soooo many things could have gone wrong with this move, but to eyes and ears of this attending author nothing did. For a first year event, it was basically FLAWLESS. The choice to overlap and even court attendees of the AVN was immaculate. The ignorant thing to do would have been to set the convention at the usual times from 9-5 or 10-6, just like all the other conventions. ONLY the BONDCON organizers had the insight to have the convention run from Noon to 8pm every day, allowing the attendees the luxury of knowing they could party as late as they wanted and still make it to work, as well as create an "only-convention-left-to-check-out" phenomenon for the last two convention hours every day. Attendees of CES or AVN were notified about BONDCON, and the BONDCON floor noticeably increased in traffic from 6pm to 8pm. Simply brilliant.
Furthermore, the BONDCON creators could equally have dropped the ball by allowing the individual booths to create the post convention entertainment like they do at AVN and CES, where you either have to be connected or get a pass to get in, or you have to sort out the ensuing chaos of what is openly happening for the attendees on any given evening. But BONDCON never made that mistake. Starting with the night of Set-Up, even BEFORE the actual convention floor opened up the next day, the BONDCON organizers provided a cocktail party each and every night from 8pm to 10 or 11pm in one of the Stardust's elegant ballrooms. Complimentary finger foods were plentiful and there was hardly ever a line at one of the various bars. On a few of these nights the organizers also provided entertainment, including the famous Dita Von Tease and Catherine D'Lish doing their well-known giant bird cage and giant martini glass burlesque shows. If attendees found themselves with nothing to do during the day, there were several purely-bondage oriented workshops to attend.
The crowd seemed to seize these cocktail parties as an opportunity to break out their Fetish Fashion. Although there was no dress code whatsoever, the environment simply seemed to inspire people to dress up, and for the most part people looked elegant. The convention itself ran like clockwork, with a wide variety of booths. Famous bondage models such as Emily Marylin and Stacy Burke had their own booths, numerous Bondage and S&M video companies were present, and several toy manufacturers were there to set up both wholesale arrangements as well as sell retail to the attendees at reduced convention-only prices. The convention itself was held in a hall which had food and beverage service running the entire time, and even after the convention was finally over the organizers continued to carry the gold medal by having one last get-together "Lite" cocktail party on the convention floor after all the booths had been cleared out.
Truly the organizers of BONDCON 2003 in Las Vegas went WAY past what a typical convention promoter needs to provide for the attendees. They created a round-the-clock experience which was both a professional occasion, a social occasion, a party, a market place, and a solid networking arena. Seriously above and beyond the call of duty. The attendees were an amazing bunch of people from all over the U.S. and from many aspects within the greater BDSM Industry, from Videomakers to Models both recognized as well as new seeking to become known, to Dominatrixes promoting themselves and their websites, to manufacturers, all manner of talent within Fetish Video production (Producers, Directors, Editors, etc), to several Fetish-Art Photographers, to simple, curious attendees. In truth, the last group, the simple curious attendees, were the fewest in number, which made BONDCON something of an Industry Convention where real business was done and real deals were struck. Of all the groups, I doubt any of them would say they found the convention seriously lacking.
About the only things that were not present at BONDCON were an actual dungeon-party or play area, and a stronger presence from the Fetish Art community. Once in a while you would see someone doing a bondage show or a whipping demonstration, but although there were certainly social occasions organized, BONDCON itself could really have used a more focused event, party, or convention-floor area of this sort. This was about the only constructive criticism that I heard from a variety of attendees, and even these people had to agree that overall BONDCON was an outstanding event. One independent group organized the lone Play-Party at an outside permanent dungeon space. The event, METAMORPHOSIS, was looked at with dubious eyes by many who suspected it would be a warehouse full of sloppy scenes by people you didn't really care to meet. However, as the night approached on the eve of the party, more and more people decided to check it out as it was pretty much the only event of its kind for the entire convention. I went with a group of a dozen or so people, and we were all delighted at what we found -- a viable party in a great venue filled with all manner of people who were mostly dressed up for the occasion doing all kinds of scenes, many of which were a pleasure to watch. Of course the emphasis seemed to be on Bondage (go figure...), but I witnessed at least one scene of immaculate whip use in a more or less anything-goes environment (no knife play or fire play allowed). As you can imagine, the bondage scenes that did occur tended to be pretty spectacular in themselves. Although I did not personally play I am happy to say it was a perfectly pleasant and well attended event.
The other factor, the lack of Fetish Art is something that was probably due to the newness of the event and the promoters personal network. Hopefully they will contact many more Fetish Artists (Painters, Graphic Artists, more Fetish-Art Photographers, etc) for next year's convention. Certainly for the incredibly reasonable booth prices that BONDCON asks there are dozens of artists who could use the exposure.
Having spoken with some of the organizers of BONDCON, I can already tell you that providing a play-space is a priority in the works for next year. I have no doubt that the word of BONDCON will get out to even more people in a variety of areas within the industry and so next year should be even bigger. BONDCON may well end up taking most if not all the Fetish traffic from AVN one day, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the big name Porn companies who are starting their Fetish lines begin to have booths at BONDCON as well.
Immaculately planned and executed, well attended with positive room to grow, focused, professional, and smoothly run, BONDCON 2003 was a truly fine event even to this author's jaded eyes. The success and quality took me absolutely by surprise. I had expected to hop back and forth between BONDCON and AVN, but after one day at each I tossed aside all further concern for AVN and made BONDCON my sole focus. They took a lot of chances running parallel to AVN, and in my opinion they soared. But most of all, beyond the excellence, the professional opportunities provided, and the chances the organizers took, BONDCON succeeded in one key area that is critically important for absolutely everyone involved and attending: BONDCON 2003 was Just Plain FUN.
INIQUITY congratulates the BONDCON 2003 Las Vegas staff.
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