South Beach's Cam Con Returns For Its Third Year

Sex sells. That’s indisputable. Some sources estimate that the adult industry takes in about $13 billion in annual revenue. However, despite numbers that surpass the profits of even the almighty NFL, with all the free porn available on the interwebs, that’s actually not as much as the industry could be making.

If you’re familiar with sites such as Chaturbate or LiveJasmin, you’ll know that one sector not hurting is the live cam girl business. The stereotype of women putting themselves through college as strippers has been replaced by exhibitionists doing many of the same things from the comfort of their own bedrooms.

One man who understands this as well as anyone is Clinton Cox, the founder of a NSFW convention, Cam Con. It’s the type of convention that if there are girls in cosplay, it’s the naughty kind.

The four day event, being held at the SLS Hotel in South Beach next week, is primarily a business-to-business trade show meant for models and industry types to network, attend seminars, and expand their general knowledge.

Cox seems to be the perfect person to bring together such a gathering of people, since the owner of Cheetah Lounge Mediaworks has an extensive background in both online and traditional video production. He has directed and produced TV programming for NBC, Fox, MTV, MUN2, Univision, Telemundo, and Bravo; as well as HD concerts including Ultra Music Festival, which he shot for 9 years.

Now in its third incarnation, Cam Con is seeing a massive increase in registrants. This is owed perhaps to the corresponding increase of Average Joes (or more likely, Janes), becoming entrepreneurs by taking advantage of high speed internet and cheaper, improved video streaming technology.
After adding the chat community to his resume in 2006, Cox and his wife (a co-founder of Cam Con), realized the untapped potential of getting those creating content from behind the camera, in front of one another and their fans.

Originally, the event was called Camming Con, but Cox and company re-branded in 2016. “It was scaring people from the event. [People were saying] ‘I don’t do camming; I do Instagram pics.’ So we changed it to Cam Con, which is every model in front of the camera, with or without a fanbase. This year it’s still real adult heavy, but it’s tipping where mainstream is now involved.”

User-generated content has proven to be profitable, whether it’s YouTube, or a woman who collects digital coins by doing weird shit for viewers hundreds — if not thousands — of miles away.

“People are creating these characters out there in the digital world and they’re making a living off of it and that’s kind of the cornerstone of Cam Con," says Cox. 

As far as the fan element goes, they save the best for last. “The very last day, we blend the fans in and have a fun fan day. Dudes fly in from all over the world to come meet this person they follow and have been live chatting. These are real serious fans. And because we live in South Florida, we get a nice local rush.”

Cox mentions that with clubs such as LIV, the beach settings, and the vibrant nightlife, South Florida is the ideal location to hold such an event. It's a fact not lost on most porn producers considering Miami has a good foothold in the biz.

Cam Con
Tuesday, May 31, through Wednesday, June 2, at the SLS Hotel on South Beach. Tickets cost $125 per day or $225 for two days. Event is 18 and older. Visit camcon.com.