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December 2007: PAUL'S PIECE - Erotica's 10th Anniversary - November 23-25 - Issue 53.
Another year, another Erotica. But wait! It wasn't just another Erotica, it was the 10th anniversary, all-singing, all-dancing one. This fact, along with the return of Dita Von Teese for a second year, had been in the adverts I'd seen in those free London papers you can't move on the tube for. Quite nice to actually come across some ads for Erotica, as I'd not seen any for a couple of years. Also acting as an advert for the keen eye, thigh boots and fishnets got more popular as one got closer to Erotica's regular home- Olympia. Yet as the train rolled into the station next to the hall, something seemed oddly missing. What's happened to the ticket touts? Surely they've not all be chased off by the big signs outside the venue warning of fake tickets.
Had I needed to buy one, I'd have had no choice but to get one from the ticket office. At £22 for either Friday (12-10pm) or Sunday (12-8pm) entry, or £25 for Saturday (12-10pm) -although I could have saved a few quid doing it online in advance- my expectations of the show would have been set quite high. Had I reached even deeper for a VIP package -up to an ear-popping £250- I'd have expected something very special indeed.
Speaking of Erotica's online presence, one strange thing I came across was Google added a warning message about possible threats to my PC when I searched for 'Erotica 2007' and got the Erotica website; Erotica-uk.com. Whatever had produced 'This site may harm your computer' had vanished by the time the show finished, and I don't know enough about what Google call Badware to suggest what the issue might be. I don't imagine it was anything malicious for a moment, but I'm glad they got whatever it was fixed.
So, there I was. Friday the 23rd of November, at the 11th London Erotica since the dark days of 1997, and it was nice. As I walked in The Scorpion's Wind of Change was playing and I wondered if it was indicative of anything. There were sociable crowds and less whirlpool baths than the past few years- so immediately I was impressed. A few things I didn't like though: initially the background music was so overpoweringly loud I was struggling to hear stallholders and I noted the lady holding an Amora 'Masterclass 101' seminar above the stage couldn't be heard over the music, even with the aid of a microphone. An amp and speakers may have helped… Even once it'd been turned down, when seminars clashed with the stage show, the stage's bigger speakers always won. I also thought the video on Eroticus.com was pretty disturbing. I'm not sure if was a joke or not, but the theme was why pay for drinks and make the effort to be charming and witty when you can just rent an escort. Why wake up next to an old dog when you can have a woman that never says no… All a little bit 'ugh' for me.
On the other hand, I liked the new giant banners hanging down, which had nice pictures on one side and Erotica-lite words on the other side, such as Decedent, Desire, Intimate, Passion and, um, Taste. Upstairs was the usual mix of smaller stands and a 'video village' -which must be due a name change by now. R18-Land maybe?
Passing the smell of sizzling sausages testing my pledge to vegetarianism, I exchanged pleasantries with Dodge of AdultFunBoard.biz and wandered past Booted Up who were sharing their stand with Playgirl Collection corsets, but when the standette next door was empty they were encouraged to split and make use of it. Sensible stuff.
Dita Von Teese had a little book-signing stand on the gallery level too, which I wasn't allowed to photograph. Following a rather rushed and late photo-call with burlesque's biggest star I wanted a better shot of Ms VT but large serious men told me her image is sacred, so I took a picture of the queue instead. It wasn't the same.
Cyber Zone was an online booth area where you could see various web services for free, and close by was Adult World selling everything they could fit on the stand, including new-to-them Vibrafun products. Adult World director Gary 'Gaz' Best told me, "We've been to Erotica before, but skipped last year. This year we held back to the last minute to make a decision and just missed the last plot downstairs. But we've been able to show the R18 films up here as it is the video village and as it happens we've actually been inundated with people up here. All our new products - the toys, the DVDs, the clothes- have been selling great. About a 50/50 split between films and non-films."
A rodeo penis and two human figure bucking bronco machines were never being used when I passed, despite being free to ride, but Petra Joy's 'How to Shoot your Lover' seminars were better attended. I sat in on one and found the practical advice about making your own porn films informative. I didn't get to see a Milky Moments' Foreplay Lesson, but what I heard as I passed crowds peeking in through the curtain suggested it was well received. I didn't see Freak Clubwear's demo area being used but co-owner Cat told me, "It's been a really good weekend and it's great to see Erotica having its 10th birthday. The response to our shows by the public was great and we've been very pleased by the turn-outs for them."
Devilish Pleasures.co.uk were giving a projector away to promote their site and Rainbow Skin had a vibrant selection of latex body paints to add some colour to your cheeks. Naughty Contacts showed off their contact magazine, Libido Assist had pills in packets and Unique Life Casts had lots of cloned willies on display, along with £10 'brass monkeys'; brass testicular paperweights. Abfab parties, based near Heathrow were chasing the swinger's scene and McCoy's Guides had the flat-cap wearing man himself. Instead Feminine Hygiene had their controversial 'Menstruation can be fun' sign up again (we chatted about the dangers of approaching transvestites, transsexuals and post-menopausal women about the product) and John Dietrich had a stand full of his erotic photos and posters. Next to this I bumped into Strapon Jane of StraponJane.com fame, and her very glamorous (almost) 6ft tall daughter Kiri. When they both posed for me, hands resting on Jane's mighty weapon, I knew I'd had my surreal moment of the show. Then I saw my old maths teacher (they didn't recognise me, I've changed a bit since school) and thought I might have topped it. You do see some sights at Erotica though. How about a wizened 80 year-old being dragged around on a lead while her breasts bounced off her knees? You've got to love that atmosphere of free expression.
Also upstairs was The Red Room, a velvet-curtain-drapped area for celebrities to relax away from the gaze of the chattering classes and watch the stage show. I didn't see any VIPs myself (which was probably the idea) but I heard Gok Wan from Channel 4's How To Look Good Naked and Al 'Pub Landlord' Murray had attended for a meet-n-greet with Dita Von Teese and to watch the show.
Facing The Red Room was the Erotica VIP lounge, access to which was one of the perks buying red, gold or black membership. None of which would save smokers from having to buy (or rather make a compulsory charitable donation to the Terrance Higgins Trust) a wristband so they could nip out for a fag.
Once the music got turned down I was able to think a bit more clearly, and noted some other changes. A new addition to the gallery level was a market-stall-esque toy stand, which stretched across the front of the hall. Apart from being the biggest display of toys I've seen in one place, it also made that area a pain when The Fantasy Boys' show -now given its own room- emptied out and blocked the area up. They also had signs up saying 'Batteries for Foto', when the general public shouldn't have been taking 'fotos'. I say shouldn't, but as per usual a lot of camera phones were on display and even the occasional proper camera appeared when there was something interesting happening; such as porn-star twister on the Strictly Broadband stand or girls dancing on the Bedroom Pleasures speedboat.
In terms of the floor plan, past gaps had been condensed into a wider central aisle which gave a 'grand central avenue' from the entrance, through the artists' area to the stage at the far end. Several people commented that this seemed to ease congestion, especially as the stage show ended, and helped people quickly redistribute themselves around the hall.
The Nice N Naughty stand proudly displayed their triple ETO Award winning status and a big stand of Wicked Pictures films, which was handy, as right next door Wicked Pictures stars Jessica Drake and Kirsten Price were meeting their many fans and staying perky despite their jetlag. Vouyer Media were sharing the stand and director, producer and occasional star Vince Vouyer was enjoying his visit to the UK.
Simon Prescott and Trish Murray had been very busy on the Nice N Naughty stand were delighted with sales, and how the Wicked girls had been drawing people to their stand. Wicked CEO Steve Orenstein was also in attendance. As a brand building exercise it'd been a huge success and they'd been giving out goodie bags of Wicked t-shirts, pens, watches and keyrings, etc. £15,000 pounds worth, donated by Steve.
I bumped into Tim Woodward of Skin Two while he was in search of a coffee, and grabbed a brief word about October's Expo, which had been up against the Xpo across town. He was pretty philosophical about the situation but acknowledged visitor numbers had been reduced. He also confirmed the Skin Two Expo would be going ahead in 2008 regardless.
On Ken and Jenny Clarke's body sculpture stand in the artists' collective area I met Rob Riches, champion bodybuilder. A Brit that'd moved to the States to pursue his oiled dreams, his defined torso had been modelled by Ken and produced in pewter by Jenny in a limited run of 250. Ken was also demonstrating his body casting technique with Rob's abs every day, as he's always getting accused of doing women (his words!) and wanted to give the ladies in the audience a treat instead. Elsewhere in the art zone I really liked Richard Neal's £60 cold cast bronze cocks, which could be used as talking-point toilet roll holders or coat hooks.
Playful Promises, FairyGothMother and Kiss Me Deadly was silky, satiny and saucy retro lingerie and corsets, and were gathered in an area facing each other. I was particularly impressed by the colourful collection of real sink £8 knickers on the Playful Promises stand. They had pairs saying Monday, Tuesday, etc. on the rear, and I joked my pants had 'November' on the back of them…
TimeBomb were close by, and had all sorts of funky stuff including Fem-Fatale t-shirts and PVC costumes. 'That Sex Shop' had a long stand of Sharon Sloane rubberwear and lots of Leg Avenue products.
Kit and Kat, modelling identical twins, were on the Bluebird Production's stand, where funny videos with Erotica-friendly blurring of rude bits were being shown. It was also the stand where Ben Dover made his triumphant return to Erotica, having been banned from visiting or exhibiting some years ago.
Squash and Squeeze were taking a ball squeezer/splitter around to show off. In transparent acrylic it looked just the Christmas gift for the proDomme in your life and RedHotPie.co.uk and LocalSwingers.co.uk were just two of the many contact/club organisations at the show. Elsewhere Play TV UK had Marino and Bev Cocks larking about, and Jim Deans was proudly showing off the set-top boxes for his rapidly growing IPTV service.
Oh joy! Oh sweet joy! The mobile-organ-playing comedy nun was back. I had a look- it's a mobility scooter under there. Also adding some of the fun missing from previous shows were two comedy show 'wardens' with Austin Powers' teeth and the human statues were back. Still no yogurt 'pigeon poo' on their shoulders for that extra authenticity though.
Random stall round-up: MYA Cosmetic Surgery Ltd, who look like they do a lot of boob jobs, Acumag Ltd had 'Professional Eye Massagers' and naturally The Chocolate Fondue Company were back, with a double-sided stand. MEM Movie & Music Memorabilia had also returned with a lot of pop-culture posters. Make a Fresh Start could give you the gleaming smile you've always dreamed of and which the Really Orgasmic Sweets' stand might deny you, and World of Water had things to make you wet. All over. Renapur Ltd were back with leather care products and Sasaki Bodycare had a tilting thing to stand on and be wobbled by. All very Ideal Home Exhibition. A firm with an unsexy name, but a more sexy product was Catering and Leisure Supplies Ltd, who had 'Erotica Cream' and 250ml, 500ml and 1 litre nitrous-oxide powered 'whippers' to blast the UHT cream out. I was warned against calling this laughing gas as that can cause 'legal problems', so I won't. Teme Valley had returned to their usual corner upstairs with beds and seats that did everything apart from be sexy, as far as I could see. Toffoc Toffee Vodka, Bodycare Salt Heater…
Swinging Heaven, London Locked (London contacts), Scarlet, Skin Two and Desire magazines all had their own stands, and on the latter Forum editor Liz Coldwell confirmed Forum publishers Trojan bought Desire a couple of weeks earlier.
E-Stim systems' Series 2 box was being launched at Erotica, and I was excitedly shown all its many advanced yet simple to use features and functions, including an audio-in socket to really make a user jump to the beat. Coldplay and the 1812 Overture were both recommended. Wayne also told me the previous month's Expo had been their best ever show in terms of sales and the Series 2 box launch had gone with a bang. Although not literally, one hopes.
It was good to see the return of Clone Zone to the show, and they shared an aisle with Nookii-Games and Toys, who also seemed busy. First-time Erotica exhibitors Dark Kitten had interesting spangly shoes and funky fetish bags. Leather Roses had products of the same name, Slap Leather, Pussy Shaver, Phase doing PVC outfits… in fact, there was lots of accessories, jewellery, corsetry and playwear stalls, but comparatively few toy and film folks. Sextoys.co.uk stood out with their tall stand, as did Nexus, who had Pods, Duo, O, Vibro, Titus, Neo, Excel and Glide- I had no idea their range of things for the male G-spot was so wide. There's something to stick up their bum for everyone, it seems.
I spotted Mike McCann on the AITA stand, deep in conversation with a potential new convert, by the look of it. I also noted the number of visitors with walking aids and in wheelchairs, which was good to see. Bondage Tape EPL were having a good Erotica, but then I was told it's always a very good show for them and Monkey Spanker looked pleased with the response to their new colours too. One thing their Colin Bailey picked up on was the lack of smoke, thanks to the ban coming in over the summer. He said, "It's much nicer- a more pleasant environment. The show seems a bit more relaxed compared to when we were last here in 2005 and more spacious somehow. Not so rammed. People have been very friendly and it's really nice. We've been pretty constant all day and as the weekend winds up I'm sure it'll get busier and busier."
Asphyxiation's Matt Bath was moonlighting on the Top Cat toys stand, but mentioned to me transvestite films seem to be in demand at the moment. Elsewhere on the stand Gary showed me their new remote controlled products, which use IR rather than radio waves to work. They also have on-toy controls, so unlike modern TVs you can still work all the features when the remote's batteries have gone flat or it's been lost down the back of the sofa. There were 9v and Rabbit versions, and one that lit up like 'a disco for your fanny'. They've also a lot of bargain glass toys that looked good.
The iJoy Rider is technically a horse-riding aid, to help build inner-thigh strength and warm muscle-groups up, but was at Erotica as a £350 adult product. With a maximum weight limit of 150Kg they're suitable for couples too, and looked a lot of fun as they rocked powerfully back and forth and side to side. I was shown two pages from the Daily Mail when it launched in March, and told me it'd been on GMTV too.
Saturday seemed busy enough again to me, with a roughly 50/50 split of resellers telling me it felt busier and quieter than last year's show to them. I guess that means similar visitor numbers to 2006, but no doubt there will be official word from the organisers. Call me cynical, but if it's markedly up on last year's claim of 80k+ it's going to make me think of implausible A-level and GCSE results being 'up again'.
Similarly split, several stands complained of significant down-turn in business against 2006's Erotica (less than 20% in a couple of cases) while others were delighted with their sales. A mixed bag of reactions then, summed up by Bond2Impress's Benita who said while they were busy she thought visitor numbers were down on last years sales had been ok and it would be when they counted the money at the end of the day, and after the show, before they knew if it'd been a success or not.
PM Pleasures were at their third Erotica. Boss Paul told me, "Business has gone well already. Lots of people walking around and some sales have come in. We stock quite a lot of Mantric's products and push the Bedside Bullet and Lipstick quite a lot- they always go down well. We're also promoting the website and our free postage and packaging, plus a free gift with every order, which are a couple of USPs for us there."
Cat and Vic of Freak Clubwear, Skin Two Clothing, The Federation and ShyingCat, amongst many others had uniforms, and it was their PVC nurses uniforms that were their big seller for their second year at the show. The Love Shack, Michelle Fashions and Beretun Designs who had lovely shoes all stand out in my mind.
In the largest stand of the show, Private UK's enclosed one next to the main central avenue, I was told by a spokesman, "We're always busy here at Erotica. So far we've been very pleased with the show. Very happy."
Along with Adult World upstairs and Private, Cut Price Films was another large film-selling stand. Their pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap philosophy kept them busy and I saw several 'seven DVDs for £50' transactions take place. Anna Span had a smaller plot near the stage and told me, "It's our first Erotica and we had a very good start. It's been much better than we'd thought. People are buying seven DVDs at a time- including Southwark Sugar, which is out now. It's up for the best film award at the Adult Film and TV Awards next week."
Alternative Footwear also had a gargantuan stand on the main passageway and were pushing their 50% promotion hard. A pair of thigh boots for £27? Bargain! Other footwear stands included Xtreme, Fifty-6 Italy, Nitelife and New Rock Boots. For the other end of the body, several wig firms were at the show, and Sensation-Elle doing makeup for black skin.
TelevisionX had a circular red sofa thing where gentlemen could snuggle up with the saucy TelevisionX girls and have his photo taken for a very reasonable price and Angels In Uniform had a similar strategy on the other side of the hall. Clubwise, Club RUB, and The Outsiders were in residence, and I noticed something a bit odd while looking over stands. Public nipples were ok, and nipples on stage were alright too, but models and performers on stands had to keep them covered up. Adult star Yazmin told me her nipples hadn't been approved and as such, her non-officially sanctioned nipples had to be covered up. Cornflake-sized bits of PVC tape weren't doing a great job though.
One oddity was the XXX Church stand, where a 'Jesus Loves Porn Stars' banner made this unusual ministry's point. Their first time in the UK, Erotica was the fourth adult show they'd attended in 2007, following on from events in Toronto, Miami and Las Vegas. They'd brought 2000 branded Bibles with them to hand out. They were at the base of the staircase to the upper deck, which was now being closed during stage performances to stop it filling up with people watching the show.
Be Rude Not To seemed to be doing roaring trade, and we never got a quiet minute to talk about Cupids Couch. Certainly they were popping up on other stands around the hall, including Strictly Broadband's. Vertical Leisure were also drawing the crowds with displays of athletic artistry on their X-Pole. Luxury Love Swings had a bit of competition elsewhere in the hall, and I also noticed quite a few cage and bondage furniture manufacturers on site. Very Alternative Furniture's Colin told me the mild weather was making his spot near the entrance less attractive than usual. When it's cold people had to pass him on the way to the cloakroom to drop their coat off, but when it's warmer visitors go straight into the show and take their time to filter back to them. Also by the main entrance/exit were Erotic Hedgehog. Their Brian showed me a £1800 rotating platform which comes with a plethora of interchangeable bondage accessories and folds flat for easy storage. He'd sold a cage by the time I left on Saturday and seemed happy about how Erotica was panning out for him, in contrast with other shows he's exhibited at.
Other new Erotica features included a fashion show on the main stage, which was also used for performances by a band called Belladonna and Dita's burlesque strip act, of course. General consensus was the shows were an improvement on recent ones, and there was certainly no shortage of people watching Savanna Samson bump'n'grind her way through strip routines.
Rounding off my weekend I attended the Torture-Garden-run Erotica Ball. Tucked away under the arches at London Bridge station, the SeOne club is also home to the Skin Two Rubber Ball which I reported on for ETO in 2006- so I had something to compare the Erotica Ball against. My overpowering conclusion was 'Skin Two Rubber Ball ticket, £32, Erotica Ball, £60'. The other thing was how strange it was to see a couple shagging and not to have a cameraman with me, but that says more about my 2007 than it says about the ball.
I'd enjoyed my seventh Erotica weekend and actually come away feeling I'd seen something new for the first time in several years, and at the time of writing I'm unaware of any exhibitors being chucked out. With mixed comments from exhibitors, it remains to be seen if it was as good a show for the trade but no doubt it has more than enough inertia to be back to draw another big crowd in 2008. Which reminds me, happy Christmas and New Year to all readers of ETO!