AVN - Las Vegas 2026

[Dugmor]

I arrived at the Virgin Hotel the day before the AVN show officially detonated across Las Vegas like a glitter bomb filled with ambition and desperation.

This is Day Zero, the calm before the storm, when the predators circle the watering hole and mark their territory before the feeding frenzy begins. I'm Dugmor, a guy with three decades in this beautifully deranged industry, and I've learned that the real money gets made in the quiet hours before the spotlights ignite.

The lobby hummed with that peculiar frequency you only hear when a thousand hustlers, dreamers, and stone-cold professionals converge on neutral ground. Badge pickup lines snaked through the venue like some bureaucratic fever dream, exhibitor badges in one queue, talent badges in another, each line a little ecosystem of gossip, posturing, and frantic cell phone thumbing.

I carved through the chaos with surgical precision, mentally mapping the terrain: bathrooms here, emergency exits there, the Round Bar positioned like some crucial base camp where deals would be negotiated over overpriced whiskey and desperate handshakes.

[Dugmor]

Near the registration tables, I caught fragments of conversation that painted the current state of our industry better than any keynote speech ever could. Two guys in expensive sneakers were deep into their social media. Their voices carried that particular excitement of people who've found a temporary edge before the platforms shadow banned their accounts

Ten feet away, another cluster discussed marketing with the fervor of alchemists who'd finally turned lead into gold. Someone was giving away pens wrapped in sponsor logos.


Then the gossip turned darker, as it always does when the stakes are high enough. Background checks. Platform purges. Legal issues forcing the removal of certain individuals from major sites. The industry's eternal tension between the Wild West ethos that built it and the corporate compliance machinery trying to sanitize it into something Wall Street won't vomit on. I filed these details away like ammunition for later, in this business, knowing who's radioactive can save you six months of wasted outreach.

[Dugmor]

Meeting Robbie: When Legends Walk Among Mortals

The highlight of Day Zero arrived without fanfare or theatrical announcement, just a chance encounter with Robbie, an industry legend whose name carries weight in rooms I haven't even entered yet. These moments are why you show up early.

While everyone else is still unpacking suitcase studios and checking into hotels, the veterans are already working the room, rebuilding old alliances and sniffing out new opportunities.

Our conversation was brief but loaded with subtext, the kind of exchange where every sentence carries three layers of meaning and a handshake seals understandings that will never appear in any contract. In an industry built on relationships and reputation, these organic connections during the calm before the chaos are worth more than any booth space or banner ad.

I heard my own name"Dugmor" float through multiple conversations as I navigated the venue. Recognition. Credibility. The currency that actually matters when you're trying to build partnerships in a space where trust is scarce and bullshit is abundant. Thirty years of showing up and delivering will do that.

[Dugmor]

Industry Insights: What Day Zero Reveals

Automation is the new arms race: Phone farms and social media automation aren't fringe tactics anymore, they're table stakes for anyone serious about traffic generation and audience building in 2026.

Smart marketing proves its ROI: High-value strategy continues generating qualified leads more efficiently than traditional advertising, particularly when coupled with smart retargeting.

Compliance pressure intensifies: Background checks and platform-level purges signal the ongoing professionalization of the industry, plan accordingly or get left behind.

Day Zero networking pays dividends: The smartest operators arrive early to scout, strategize, and connect before the convention floor turns into a three-ring circus of noise and distraction.

Reputation precedes opportunity: Being recognized by name in industry circles opens doors that cold outreach never will. Invest in relationships, not just tactics.

[Dugmor]

Day Zero at AVN taught me what I already suspected: the real work happens in the margins, before the lights come up and the cameras start rolling. While amateurs sleep in and show up fashionably late, professionals are mapping the battlefield and shaking the hands that matter.

If you're at AVN this year and want to talk traffic, automation, or just swap war stories from the trenches, find me at the Round Bar or track me down on the floor, I'm the guy talking strategy while everyone else is taking selfies.

[Robbie]

Originally Posted by Dugmor

Meeting Robbie: When Legends Walk Among Mortals

The highlight of Day Zero arrived without fanfare or theatrical announcement, just a chance encounter with Robbie, an industry legend whose name carries weight in rooms I haven't even entered yet. These moments are why you show up early.

While everyone else is still unpacking suitcase studios and checking into hotels, the veterans are already working the room, rebuilding old alliances and sniffing out new opportunities.

Our conversation was brief but loaded with subtext, the kind of exchange where every sentence carries three layers of meaning and a handshake seals understandings that will never appear in any contract. In an industry built on relationships and reputation, these organic connections during the calm before the chaos are worth more than any booth space or banner ad.

I heard my own name"Dugmor" float through multiple conversations as I navigated the venue. Recognition. Credibility. The currency that actually matters when you're trying to build partnerships in a space where trust is scarce and bullshit is abundant. Thirty years of showing up and delivering will do that.

Great seeing you and thank you for those kind words.

[nikki99]

Originally Posted by Dugmor

Meeting Robbie: When Legends Walk Among Mortals

.

love this couple

[Dugmor]

The Round Bar at the Virgin Hotel became ground zero for something more valuable than any panel discussion or booth demonstration, the kind of unfiltered, whiskey-lubricated conversations where the real history of this industry gets told.

Night Zero is when the veterans emerge from whatever holes they've been hiding in since last year's convention, drawn together by some gravitational force that only exists when enough people who've survived three decades of technological upheaval gather in one place.

I'm Dugmor, and I've been in this circus since the mid-1990s, which means I remember when "streaming" meant something entirely different and fortunes were built on plastic discs that cost forty cents to manufacture.

The AVN show starts as the SHOT Show firearms convention ends, creating this bizarre collision of industries, gun enthusiasts and adult entertainment professionals sharing elevator space and casino oxygen. Two tribes that understand American capitalism in its purest, most unregulated form, each carrying their own special relationship with controversy and credit card processors who'd rather pretend neither existed.

Ghosts of Affiliate Programs Past

The conversations flowed like bourbon, smooth at first, then burning with uncomfortable truths. I spent hours with industry veterans who remembered when MPA3 and Silvercash ruled the affiliate landscape, when Evil Angel was revolutionizing gonzo production, and when a solid DVD distribution deal meant you could buy a house in the Valley. We're the last generation who can remember dialing into bulletin board systems to trade image files and thinking we were witnessing the future.

One colleague and I reconstructed the archaeology of our business like two paleontologists piecing together fragments of a extinct species. The DVD era, with its glorious profit margins and physical inventory. The early affiliate programs that paid actual money before everyone realized they could just steal traffic and rebrand it. The golden age before tube sites detonated the economic model and forced everyone to rebuild from smoking rubble.

Now? It's OnlyFans, AI-generated content, social media automation, and blackhat marketing. The tools change but the hustle remains constant, find attention, monetize it, repeat until the platform bans you or the algorithm kills your reach.

[djroof]

Have fun, man! Post more content from there, to feel that we are there too ;)

[fuzebox]

that particular excitement of people who've found a temporary edge before the platforms shadow banned their accounts

Relatable

[CaptainHowdy]

I dig the overall tongue-in-cheek approach of your account . . .

[Dugmor]

Day One: When the Phone Farm Meets the Panic Button

The AVN Expo erupted into full operational chaos on Day One, transforming the Virgin Hotel into a concentrated marketplace where desperation and ambition collide at booth after booth.

I'm Dugmor, and I came armed with something most attendees don't have, actual infrastructure that solves real problems at scale. While everyone else was handing out branded lube samples and QR codes to their OnlyFans, I was pitching enterprise-level social media automation to agencies drowning in the impossible mathematics of managing hundreds of performer accounts across multiple platforms without getting banned into oblivion.

My weapon of choice? A phone farm operation that would make Silicon Valley's growth hackers weep with envy, thousands of managed accounts running on 5G mobile proxies with SMS verification for 850+ platforms, all wrapped in software that handles Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit automation while keeping each account's digital fingerprint clean enough to avoid the algorithmic death penalty. It's not sexy, but it prints money for people smart enough to understand that attention at scale requires infrastructure, not inspiration.

[Dugmor]

The Hustle Intensifies: Pitching Infrastructure to the Desperate

The expo floor felt like a pressure cooker set to maximum, booth after booth of agencies, studios, and solo performers all facing the same existential crisis: how do you build audience when every platform is actively trying to destroy your reach? I moved through the chaos like a solutions dealer, identifying pain points and offering relief.

"We handle everything," I explained to one agency managing fifty-plus performers, their social media coordinator looking like she hadn't slept since 2023. "Software, proxies, phone numbers, 2FA verification, you plug your accounts into our infrastructure and we scale them without triggering platform flags. Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, all of it."

The interest was immediate and intense. These aren't small-time operators hoping to stumble into success, these are agencies managing real talent rosters who understand that social media presence directly correlates to booking rates and subscription revenue. When I mentioned 5G mobile proxies and proper account warming protocols, eyes lit up with the recognition that I wasn't selling snake oil, I was offering actual engineering solutions to genuine technical problems.

I scheduled a Friday 11:11 AM meeting with one particularly promising contact, specific time, mutual accountability, the kind of detail that separates serious business from convention floor vapor. Phone numbers exchanged, not Telegram handles. Real communication for real deals.

[Dugmor]

The Legal Panel: Where Optimism Goes to Die

Between pitching sessions, I ducked into a legal panel that felt like attending a funeral for the First Amendment. Lawyers in expensive suits discussed the legislative tsunami building around age verification requirements and AI-generated content restrictions with the grim professionalism of oncologists delivering bad news.

The momentum is building. State after state is passing age verification laws that sound reasonable on CNN but function as de facto censorship when implemented. The panel dissected how these regulations work in practice, driving traffic, creating compliance nightmares for American businesses, and accomplishing absolutely nothing to protect minors while giving politicians talking points for re-election campaigns.

Then the AI conversation began, and the temperature in the room dropped another ten degrees. Regulations are coming. Platform policies are tightening. The legal framework hasn't caught up with the technology, which means everyone operating in this space is essentially beta-testing compliance strategies while lawmakers figure out what questions to ask.

I absorbed this information with the clarity of someone who's survived three decades of technological and regulatory disruption. The DVD era died. The affiliate golden age died. Tube sites nearly killed production budgets. Now AI and age verification laws represent the next extinction event, and the survivors will be whoever adapts fastest with the best infrastructure.

[Dugmor]

Thirty Years Compressed into Convention Conversations

Between pitch sessions and legal panels, I reconnected with industry veterans who remember when I was running early an affiliate program and producing content before "content creator" was even a phrase.

These conversations feel like archaeological expeditions, digging through layers of technological evolution, failed business models, successful pivots, and the particular resilience required to stay relevant when your industry reinvents itself every five years.

I've gone from hosting websites on physical servers to managing phone farms that automate social media at scale. From producing content to providing the infrastructure that helps others distribute it. From worrying about DVD replication costs to calculating the economics of 5G proxy bandwidth. The tools change but the fundamental challenge remains constant: capture attention, monetize it efficiently, and stay ahead of whoever's trying to regulate or ban you this quarter.

[Dugmor]

Industry Insights: What Day One Revealed

• Infrastructure beats inspiration: Agencies managing multiple performers need enterprise solutions, not motivational content, sell them systems that solve actual technical problems at scale.
  
  
• Regulatory pressure accelerates: Age verification and AI content laws are gaining legislative momentum across multiple states, plan compliance strategies now or face platform bans and legal exposure later.
  
  
• 5G mobile proxies are table stakes: Proper social media automation in 2026 requires mobile IP rotation and clean digital fingerprints, anything less triggers immediate platform flags.
  
  
• Phone numbers > Telegram for serious business: Real deals require real contact information, instant messaging apps signal you're not ready for grown-up conversations.
  
  
• Nostalgia provides context, not revenue: Thirty-year industry veterans have perspective, but survival requires focusing on current infrastructure needs, not past glory.

[Dugmor]

Day One confirmed what I suspected: the desperation for legitimate scaling solutions is intense, the regulatory environment is tightening, and the operators who survive the next wave of disruption will be those who built real infrastructure instead of chasing viral moments.

If you're managing talent rosters and drowning in social media chaos, or if you're navigating the compliance nightmare that's coming for AI content, let's talk before Saturday, I'll be the one actually solving problems while everyone else is still defining them.