Meanwhile latecomers registered, got their bearings and joined in on what promises to be a busy, party-filled three days in the care of the CCBill team and its hard-hitting list of sponsors.
CCBill’s Randall Crockett told XBiz that this year’s event is the largest in the Forum’s seven-year history, with around 1,400 adult professionals expected to trickle in today and throughout the end of the week.
Crockett said the Tempe Mission Palms, where the event was held last year, was sold out within two weeks of open registration and that Forum registrants have sold out hotels in the surrounding Scottsdale and Phoenix areas as well.
New additions to this year’s event include the first-ever Phoenix Forum Networking Guide, which features 180 pages of categorized information on industry companies and the adult professionals behind them.
As an added perk for premium sponsors, the CCBill team is giving out Dell Palm PDAs to provide an easier way to track clients as well as access a downloaded version of the Networking Guide. Premium sponsors include NicheBucks, PussyCash, SexSearch, SilverCash, Lightspeed, RealityCash, DCDeeCash, SexKey, AdultLocals and MetMaster.
One deviation from last year’s event, Crockett said, was more involvement from sponsors in the seminar lineup, which typically is run in a more hands-on fashion by CCBill. The seminar lineup, however, will still be presented like last year's, starting with a “Back to Basics” theme for the event’s first day and then moving on to intermediate and advanced topics by the last day of the Forum.
Additionally, Crockett added, the seminars will all be webcast from the Phoenix Forum website with some shots added of the outdoor networking and evening events.
Results from GigaCash's Phoenix Forum 2nd Annual Golf Tournament spelled victory for 1st place low score winners Chuck, Byorn, Kyle and Joe Stricklin of Video Secrets, and 2nd place low score winners Moffet, Spike, Bob and Rob of Homegrown Video and XonDemand.
The event was well attended with an estimated 60 players, and a percentage of the proceeds from this year’s game will go to ASACP and the Free Speech Coalition.
"What an amazing day," Stephen Bugbee, vice president of GigaCash, told XBiz. "I just want to thank all the sponsors and participants as well as CCBill for letting me kick off the Phoenix Forum with this event. We raised some good money for ASACP and FSC and look forward to doing it again next year."
This year’s GigaCash golf gathering took place at the Phantom Horse Golf Club. The tournament included a best-ball format, money and prizes for winners of contests for the lowest score, longest drive, closest to the pin and putting, as well as the Silvercash $50,000 hole-in-one contest. A cocktail party and banquet followed the event.
GigaCash golf sponsors included TopBucks, PluginFeeds, CCBill, Vivid, SilverCash, AnywebCam, PornAccess/DVDBox, Local Billing, Epoch/Paycom EU, The Fubar Times, Mansion Productions, XonDemand, CECash presents Sex on the Pod, OC3 Networks, VIdeo Secrets and Playboy.
Kickoff parties for the first official day of the Phoenix Forum start with a JustBlowMe Happy Hour at Hooters, a Lightspeed Webmaster Dodgeball Tournament & Happy Hour, a CCBill Welcome Reception at the Tempe Mission Palms, a late night PussyCash Beach Party, the Gay Webmaster Launch Party, a Mansites/Pridebucks Suite Party and, for those with after-midnight munchies, a TopBucks-sponsored Pizza Party in suite 2047.