QWEBEC Expo Wrap-up

MONTREAL — Held from August 26-28 at the Marriott Chateau Champlain Hotel in Montreal, QWEBEC Expo wrapped up its eighth annual B2B event — closing out well before the remnants of Hurricane Irene hit its host city.

According to its promoters, QWEBEC Expo is a tradeshow and technical conference serving existing and prospective online adult entertainment professionals and acts as an international crossroads for U.S., Canadian and European members of the adult industry.

QWEBEC Expo CEO Michael Plante says that the event showcases the latest adult industry technologies, trends, products and services, and provides adult website owners, operators and webmasters with the information and resources they need in order to build, maintain, promote, market and grow a successful adult Internet business.

“This is a great opportunity for people to meet face-to-face with industry suppliers from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe and other countries,” Plante stated. “This is also a great opportunity to meet Canadian webmasters who, for some reason, can’t get across the border to attend U.S.-based events [and] Europeans who can’t get into the U.S. [due to visa issues, for example], but come to Montreal to meet U.S. people.”

Sponsored by Too Much Media, PussyCash, FameDollars, Gamma Entertainment, Mobius Payments, Epoch, 2much.net, Juggcash.com, SexSearch, Paxum and WTSeu, the QWEBEC Expo also featured sponsor exhibits and booths representing a range of online adult entertainment companies; including AdXpansion, NetCash, Crakmedia Network, Momentous, Blue Lush and Payout Magazine.

Seminars were also on the agenda at QWEBEC Expo, with a “New Bees Workshop” moderated by ASACP Executive Director Tim Henning, kicking off the event. Henning, a digital forensics expert, answered the questions attendees are usually too shy to ask — such as how to get started in adult and how to succeed with the assets you already have. Adult industry “Do’s and Don’ts” were also discussed.

“It really was a great Expo, with a very diverse group of people from Europe, the U.S., and of course, Canada,” Henning told XBIZ. “The seminars were excellent and well attended and QWEBEC Expo has one of the best versions of speed networking I have seen — the networking events and parties were all fantastic.”

“Montreal is an amazing city and has become a major center for the industry, serving as home to Manwin and Gamma Entertainment, as well as other medium and small adult businesses, many of which don’t attend any other shows,” Henning added. “The bottom line is that everyone had a great time and did good business.”

Adult entertainment is really a “people” business, driven by the need for quality staff and rewarding opportunities for those seeking a career in this challenging industry; so to provide knowledge and support, a special keynote session featuring X Industry Jobs / HR Solutions chief Eddie K. was held to discuss working in adult: including the pros and cons of accepting in-house or remote worker positions and strategies for finding the right job or the best employees in this business.

Speed networking, sponsored snacks and a coffee break, led into an afternoon session discussing marketing, traffic and social networks.

Moderated by Nigel from AdXpansion, this seminar dealt with the issues of traffic from tube sites, banner ad efficacy, improving sales conversion rates and the best ways to purchase and convert quality traffic — including visitors from Canada and Europe, as well as from Facebook and Twitter.

The evolving affiliate world was acknowledged with a keynote address by Evan Back from infidelity service AshleyMadison.com, who discussed mind-settings that attendees can change in their daily business life to achieve the success they deserve, among other helpful topics.

Roger McMan from My Gay Cash led the event’s billing and processing seminar, which detailed how online billing works; the subtle differences between today’s available billing options and how to use them effectively. Cascading billing solutions, things you need to know before acquiring your own merchant account and the benefits of third-party billing were also discussed at this informative session.

Finally, industry veteran Evil Chris from XNations helmed the legal panel, which discussed the issues surrounding copyrights, 2257-style laws in Canada, how the U.S. CAN-SPAM act has affected marketing and the challenge posed by Canada’s CASL law, with presentations by security strategist Neil Schwartzman and attorney Shaun Brown.

Nightly networking cocktail parties and offsite events rounded out this installment of the QWEBEC Expo, providing a nice balance of work and play for the event’s attendees.