25,000 adult film stars, distributors, and fans descended on Las Vegas this week for the 15th annual Adult Entertainment Expo and AVN Award Show, the industry’s equivalent of the Academy Awards. Porn stars showed off for the cameras, toy manufacturers hawked their wares, and 1,000 journalists from hundreds of outlets chronicled the extravaganza.
However, this year’s convention comes at a pivotal moment for the industry’s presence in California, which has long been the pornography capital of the world.
High taxes, strict regulations, and a higher cost of living are converging to push the porn industry out of California and into other states like Nevada and Florida, where rules governing the adult entertainment business are more relaxed. However, the relief may be short-lived, as most of those states are considering tighter regulations of their own.
