There comes a time when we have to come clean, and let our readers in on a secret.Although we love to report on upcoming events so you can get more exposure in order to make more money, there are some things you really have to put on the top of your business list.Traveling to the right shows is certainly one of them.Proper planning can keep your costs way down, and sometimes, taking advantage of the current worldwide economy, allows you to make last minute plans to travel, at very reduced prices.
So, what is the big secret?OK, here goes…But remember, we told you about it.
We just got back from the www.EverythingToDoWithSex.comshow in Toronto. Never before have we experienced a show such as “Mikey” [and his super-friendly staff] puts on. When I tell you that there were 40,000+ people there, it is conservative! We were exhibiting our web development services, and we set-up next to a 20 foot booth that only had cock ring vibrators.We laughed and wondered what planet they were from, expecting to sell more than a thousand vibrators.We shook our heads when we saw they had 4 people ready to sell “vibrators”.Well, we are now scraping egg off our faces.When the doors opened, the crowds just kept pouring in.The show opened at 11:00am and ended at 12:00am, 13 hours. At 10:00pm, people were still pouring in.I don’t mean it was the occasional stream of people.It was a constant flow of consumers that simply never ended. There were over a thousand people watching the professional stage shows that had professional sexy performers; real shows! They charged only $30.00 or so for tickets, drawing in massive number of people.These are the guys that run shows across Canada, and to say that every website company that has something to sell should be there, well, just let it be known that if you have a product and you cannot sell it at this show, it will never sell anywhere.The only thing we did not understand was the car we rented had, what we learned was, an ice scraper and snow brush in it.Being from south Florida, that was something new to us, as was the 40,000+ constant stream of visitors.
The numbers are in and the 2009 NY -NJ EXXXOTICA Expo wrapped up its second year.AdultChamber was there with a double booth and “BUSY” would be an understatement.The traffic figures, straight from the organizers, Victory Tradeshow Management, report this year’s event exceeded 18,000 total attendees. With a convention hall that was more than twice the size of the year before, the exhibitors were kept very busy. In addition to the record-breaking number of attendees for the show, EXXXOTICA saw a media blitz featuring over 100 outlets covering the show, including all of the major network news covering the show.Members of the media broke the story that a last-minute attempt by the Edison city council to amend zoning ordinances that would outlaw the show if it was within 1,000 feet of a public park, school or house of worship. But despite their efforts, the show went on without a hitch, as the venue was approximately eight inches safely outside of the council’s imposed boundaries, allowing the show to go on as scheduled and without any additional restrictions.
There was one booth that was sponsored by Genesis Magazine. It hosted such adult superstars as Jesse Jane, Sasha Grey, Jenna Haze, Teagan Presley, Eva Angelina, Bree Olson, Kayden Kross, Sunny Leone, Gina Lynn, Savanna Samson and her fellow Vivid Girls Monique Alexander, AJ Bailey and Meggan Mallone, Nina Mercedez, Taryn Thomas, Isis Taylor, Moxxie Maddron, Lexi Love, Alexis Ford and the final adult industry appearance of Penny Flame.
This year’s show also marked the debut of “Legends of EXXXOTICA,” which featured the largest collection of adult hall of famers ever assembled under one roof. XXX icons such as Seka, Lisa Ann, Heather Hunter, Kylie Ireland, Sean Michaels, Taylor Wane, Teri Weigel, Ginger Lynn, Christy Canyon, Mr. Marcus, Alexandra Silk, Luc Wylder, and more greeted enthusiastic fans for the three days of the show. The new attraction was an overwhelming hit for the attendees, stars and media.
J. Handy of Victory Tradeshow Management, the producers of EXXXOTICA, summed the weekend up best. The feedback from the exhibitors and attendees has been nothing short of amazing on what a success this year’s show was. The Sheraton Hotel is located just down the street.That is where the staff at AdultChamber stayed.We can confirm that the hotels was completely sold out, and area restaurants and other businesses related to their guests saw an increase in business and we’re glad to have contributed to the local economy. For those interested in securing premier booth space and sponsorships for next year’s show or EXXXOTICA Miami Beach which runs from May 14-16, 2010, please contact Victory Tradeshow Management at info@vtshows.com or call (215) 462-8800.To see the entire 2009 EXXXOTICA photo gallery, CLICK HERE
This weekend… we will be at the ExxxoticaNewYork show where 20,000+ consumers will be in Edison, New Jersey looking for sexy items and more… We will be conducting three website development seminars. We will be there exhibiting, as will HotMovies and so many other companies. Here is what’s coming up:
SwingFest – October 22-25 – Miami, Florida – A Conusmer show different from all others…
Why is SwingFest different?
The attendees are thousands of Swinger couples who are the most open-minded audience you can find anywhere. They are also the most financially comfortable group you will find. The company that puts SwingFest together makes it inexpensive to have a booth and intermingle with the attendees, all to meet, face-to-face with a totally untapped market. The 2009 SwingFest Convention & Tradeshow is being held in Miami, Florida at the luxurious Hilton Miami Downtown on October 22nd thru the 25th. Thousands of patrons are projected to roam the enormous 45,000 square foot Exhibitor and Vendor area over the duration of SwingFest 2009. Convention Exhibitors get the unique opportunity to display, demonstrate and SELL their product [or service] to this massive upscale target audience, for far less than most other advertising options. The people at SwingFest are really easy to work with. They answer questions without a sale pitch. Got questions about potentially exhibiting? Call them at: +1-305-942-9715 . GIVE THEM A CALL, and get your exhibitor questions answered.
Here are 2 more shows to keep in mind:InterNext – January, 2010 – Las Vegas, Nevada – If you are new to the biz, Internext is a must… The Barcelona Summit – February 19-21, 2010 – Barcelona, Spain – This is the #1 show in Europe.We hope your summer was fun and memorable…
For fear that Host.net will attempt to sue us for putting up our opinion of their service, I make this disclaimer that this is our opinion of the service we received from the company. It is not intended to stop you from using their services. It is intended to express our experiences so you can make wise business decisions.
A few days ago I told you of another incident we had with Host.net. I think this is one that is definitely worthy of sharing. This relates to their President, Jeffrey Davis. Three times over three months, we received spam mail from host.net. Each time, it included an email list of all their customers. We emailed them notifying them that someone in their company was sending out emails with their entire customer list. We thought telling them was the right thing to do. We received no response to our efforts to notify them. About six months later we decided to contact their clients about our web development services, a service Host.net does not provide. I made absolutely sure the email was written so there would be no conflict of interest. I read and re-read the email for over 4 hours. We had, what I thought, was a long and mutually respectful relationship with Host.net, and I had no intention of taking any business from them. I writing the email, I wanted to be perfectly clear that we had our servers on the same network, and that it would be easy for us to work with them should they want us to do some web development. We also said that if they were ever thinking of leaving Host.net, for whatever reason, we indicated in one simple sentence that we could provide them with services on the same network, to avoid any disruption, and that Host.net would not lose the bandwidth, a win-win situation. I send out only 100 emails of the 1,100 or so that were on the list, just to make sure all was OK.
Two things happened. While sending the first 100 emails, I quickly received two emails from disgruntled Host.net client where one told me that he was told that as a small client, they were not going to give him the level of service he needed, and that he found another company. And, ten minutes after the test mailing was done, a Mr. Jeffrey Davis, the President of Host.net, called our company and instantly went ballistic. It appeared he had his own client list seeded with in-house email addresses. Jeffrey Davis began our business conversation, literally screaming at me on the telephone. As unprofessional as that sounds, and taken by total surprise, it really happened. I tried to calm him down and assure him that there was absolutely no intention of taking any business from Host.net, but he would have none of my words, mumbling at times in what appeared to me as a man who was angry and out of control.
He began his ranting by informing me that he instructed the Host.net security department to take all of our servers offline. This was verified by our Systems Administrator walking into my office during the conversation to inform me that we were offline. Jeffrey Davis said “You are now out of business, and if you want to be online again, deal with our attorney”. As abruptly as the conversation began with his screaming, it ended the same way. The conversation lasted 45 seconds. Now, how is that for putting their long-term client, AdultChamber and Online Technologies, into to frenzy? We sweated and scrambled. Called their attorney and explained, in detail, how we had no intention of harming Host.net in any way whatsoever. We called Mr. Lenny Chasal, Executive Vice President, who told us he could not talk to us about this matter. Well, it was back and forth with their Attorney, who told me that “Jeffrey can lose his cool and over-react”. Well, it took until 9:00pm for the attorney to get us paperwork to sign. Every time we anxiously called, we were told my his secretary that he was with a client and that he would get to our matter just as soon as he could. Clearly at that point we would have signed anything to get our clients back online. One would have to assume that Host.net [and their attorney] knew it.
Then we called the company after, under duress, the papers were signed, we immediately called support and their technician on duty told us he was not authorized to bring us back online, and that his Supervisor went home. I told him I was driving over there, now, since all of our clients were offline, including a huge Neurological organization , which we maintain their web server and all their associated email accounts. The technician had his Supervisor call me from his home, and we were online at 10:00pm.
A week later, we needed to address a hard drive issue on a server and needed to be at the machine at the network center. Guess what happened when get arrived? Our door security keys no longer worked! This forced us to drive 20 minutes to their main office at 3500 NW Boca Raton Blvd, Boca Raton, Florida 33431, from their network center in Delray Beach, and have it re-coded.
To add insult to injury, when we finally got back to the network center and opened the secure door with our re-coded Host.net pass key, the combination to the door of our rack cage was also reset, causing us even more frustration. We shrugged it off as additional punishment, but the distaste for Host.net never left.
Like I said in my last post, if you are interested in doing business with Host.net in Boca Raton, Ft. Lauderdale, Delray Beach, or wherever, our personal opinion is to keep shopping. I guarantee you that even if you do not have any of the horror events we experienced, you will be paying thousands of dollars if you do not notify them MORE THAN 60 days prior to the anniversary of your contract, that you are leaving. And, you better be able to do something no one I know if capable of, moving multiple servers just a few days prior to the end of the contract year. If not, YOU PAY thousands of dollars for not adhering to the letter of the contract.
Working with Host.net was an amazing and expensive adventure. It was very painful at times and worst of all, massively time consuming from a labor standpoint. If I get a chance, I will talk about another Host.net event. It’s about overbilling by thousands upon thousands of dollars, following their refusal to help us mitigate a server attack by simply giving us the affected server’s IP address. And, if we were not careful when we initially entered into the contract with them, they would have had the opportunity to force us to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars; an amount they billed us, then threatened to turn us off again, until we went into our files and proved to them that they agreed to a clause in the agreement.
I end this post with this thought. Never once did we feel that Host.net cared for one second if our business succeeded. They are the first hosting facility we used since 1993 that only cared about one thing, getting as much money out of us as they could, whenever they could. That is how we felt!
For fear that Host.net will attempt to sue us for putting up our opinion of their service, I make this disclaimer that this is our opinion of the service we received from the company. It is not intended to stop you from using their services. It is intended to express our experiences so you can make wise business decisions.
We have been in the online business since 1990. In 1993, we starting using network centers to host multiple web servers, and every company provided us with professional services. When Host.net in Boca Raton, who services Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, West Palm Beach and all the towns in the area acquired Web United, where our servers were located, they started the relationship with us based on what we feel was absolute deceit. How? We were asked to move all of our servers to a new location, which we did, over a weekend. Everyone knows how difficult that can be and how disruptive it can be for our clients. Then, after the servers were moved, we were immediately notified that we were no longer with WebUnited.net, we were with Host.net. They know this all along and told us that it was not in our interest to know it before we moved the servers. So started the absolute worst business experience we can even begin to describe.
Screw you in the end?
Let’s start with the end… There is small print in their contract that says that if you do not notify them, by certified mail, in EXCESS of 60 days prior to the annual anniversary of the agreement, they automatically renew the agreement for one year and you are responsible for a full year of service, even if you do not use it. Remember, when you leave them, for whatever reason, they will attempt to collect every month you are not with Host.net, until the anniversary of the contract. So, let’s say you are paying $2,000 a month for a rack with bandwidth. You sign up with Host.net in June. Let’s say you stay with them for two and half years and you need to close down your business, move your business and need to move your servers closer to your new office, etc. It is now December. Guess what? Even though you paid all your bills to them, on time, they will make every legal attempt to collect $12,000 from you, even though you told them you needed to leave. Now, imagine you are the System Administrator and maybe the company’s Webmaster who recommended Host.net of Boca Raton? How are you going to explain this away? This is what is happening to us, right now. Different figures but the same thing…And, there are more stories we have to tell. Soon I will tell you how Host.net of Boca Raton and Deerfield Beach abruptly cut off our service, started screaming at us on the phone, all for sending an innocent email they did not like. You got it, cut off our service at 4:00pm and forced us to sign something, allowing us to stay online and in business.Then I will tell of how they refused to tell us which server of ours, on our full rack, was eating excessive bandwidth. They refused to tell us the IP of the server, forcing us to the network center to do a diagnostic that they could have solved.Recommendation: If you are thinking of using Host.net, keep shopping before making your final decision. Our experience was nothing short of a nightmare. And we know of another company going through the exact same thing as we are going through, trying to cut the ties from Host.net of Boca Raton, Florida.Marc Laffer, President
AdultChamber.com – Online Technologies
