What the AVN Runway Is Actually Like

The AVN runway is hard to explain to anyone who hasn't walked it. Picture a fashion show and an industry meet-and-greet happening at once, in heels that stop feeling like a good idea around hour two. I've now done it twice — 2025 and 2026, both at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas — and the two years taught me different things.

The setup, for anyone picturing a conventional fashion show: it isn't one. Fans stand right at the edge, close enough to catch your eye, ask you something, or pass you a phone for a selfie. There's no fourth wall. A fashion-week model walks past an audience; at AVN you walk through one. That's the charm and the challenge in one sentence. The moment you step out, you're simultaneously performing, greeting, posing, and having four half-conversations with people whose faces you're trying to place from your DMs.

Backstage

Backstage is its own ecosystem. The green room is all of us — performers you know from everywhere — collectively trying to solve the same three problems: how to keep lipstick intact through a ten-hour day, how to stay upright in the shoes we chose over the shoes we should have chosen, and how to look effortless on a livestream that broadcasts every step. On the stream, the crew makes all of it look easy. Behind the curtain it's held together by bobby pins, double-sided tape, and camaraderie.

First year versus second year

The first year, the nerves are real. You don't know the rhythm, you overthink the walk, and the green-room adrenaline burns you out by mid-afternoon. By year two you know the rhythm, the nerves shrink, and you pick shoes with the whole day in mind. Stepping out onto the runway stays a rush of overstimulating fun, though. That part doesn't wear off, and I hope it never does.

The rest of AVN week

What people don't see from the livestream is that the runway is maybe a tenth of the week. AVN week is the industry's yearly checkpoint — I've compared it against XBIZ and Exxxotica if you're picking which to attend: the Adult Entertainment Expo runs during the day, so there are fan-floor signings between everything else, and the awards ceremony anchors the Saturday night. Around all of it, the real business happens — studio meet-ups, catalog planning, a lot of next year's scenes getting booked over coffee and cocktails. The runway is the visible crest of a very busy wave.

Most of the week's energy is out on the fan floor. The runway is a performance; the floor is a conversation. If we met during AVN week, on the runway or out on the AEE floor, that's the part I remember — the eye contact from the crowd, the selfies, the "I voted for you" whispers. That's what the heels are for.

Would I keep doing it? AVN 2027 is already on my calendar, so yes. Ask me again at hour nine of the lipstick problem and the answer may briefly waver — but it's a yes.