AVN Awards

The AVN Awards are film awards sponsored and presented by the American trade magazine AVN (Adult Video News) annually to honor achievements in the global adult entertainment industry. The awards are often called the "Oscars of porn".
The award ceremony occurs in early January during the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. AVN sponsored the first AVN Awards ceremony in February 1984. Since 2008, the show has aired in a form edited for time on Showtime, which is usually broadcast in a 90-minute time slot.
The awards are divided into over 100 categories, some of which are analogous to industry awards offered in other film and video genres, and others that are specific to pornographic/erotic film and video.
Awards for gay adult video were a part of the AVN Awards from the 1987 ceremony through the 1998 ceremony. The increasing number of categories made the show unwieldy. For the 1999 ceremony AVN Magazine began hosting the GayVN Awards, an annual adult movie award event for gay adult video.
The design of the AVN Award changed several times before and is in its present form since 2013 when it was redesigned as part of the 30th anniversary of the awards show. The redesigning was led by Michael Krasun, and supervised by AVN CEO Theo Sapoutzis. Krasun was a veteran with 25-plus years experience in designing, fabricating and building of restaurants, nightclubs, airport facilities and theme fixtures around the world. The makers aimed to create an artifact that represented "sexual expression, integrity and exotic flair", and after months of work arrived at a figurine that showcased "two people in a very erotic embrace, yet without any explicit details of the bodies on display". The impressive resultant figurine was conferred as the official AVN award going forward. All the trophies are hand-poured and custom mixed containing 40 percent resin and 60 percent ground marble, making them very sturdy. An epoxy coating with mix of bronze powders is applied as final finish. A solid black stone base with award winners details is engraved on front side. The artifact, from inception to fabrication, was accomplished entirely in the US.
Originally, the awards show was part of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, but it grew and garnered more attention over time, allowing it to be established as a separate event in the 1990s. The event started out as the "Adult Software exhibition" of the show, which attracted as many as 100,000 visitors in addition to those attending CES. When the show became a separate event, it initially moved to Caesar's Palace, but it has since moved to other Las Vegas venues.
A writer from Los Angeles magazine made the claim in 2006 that awards often go to consistent advertisers in AVN magazine. In his article, the writer stated: "Imagine the editors of Variety choosing the Academy Award nominations—then handing out Oscars to the winners—and you have a pretty good idea of how much manipulation can go on behind the scenes during the run-up to the AVNs. [...] Actresses trying to secure a nomination stop in to schmooze at the magazine's Chatsworth offices. [An agency] client once presented dolls of herself to editors and writers. Another baked cookies".
In 2013, actress Tanya Tate offered some insights into the industry in an interview with the Huffington Post about the 30th AVN Awards at which she was nominated for an award. She stated: "If you are more popular with the fans, companies are more likely to book you for their production", "Being nominated for awards help build your recognition with your fan base. People that win male and female performer of the year are generally solid consistent talent that are open to many 'levels', and some of these performers already have higher basic rates than others".
Listed below are the winners of the AVN Award in various major categories over the following years: