Las Vegas- Arrow’s marketing director Robert Interlandi, www.xxxdeepthroat.com isn’t going to the Exxxotca NY show this year. Not that he has anything against the present owners, Victory Tradeshow Management. It was the past ownership of the show that he had issues with.
“That show from a few years ago was a disaster,” recalls Interlandi with a laugh. “A different person was trying to do a show, and it was at the Pennsylvania Hotel. The venue sucked. And the people who ran it thought they could start at 10am and end at 5pm. That’s when everyone was getting off work.”
“And the Pennsylvania Hotel, across the street from Madison Square Garden, was the worst ever. The rooms were a total disaster and they were $300 a night. They’re supposed to have nice rooms, but we didn’t get one. We got the show ‘special’, right next to the maid’s room, I think it was.”
“Somebody pee’d in our air conditioner unit,” Interlandi went on to relate.
“There was no ventilation and it made the room stink. There were roaches and bed bugs. I’d rather stay at a Motel 6. Any Motel 6 across the country, and I stay in hotels everywhere.”
I suggest that Interlandi in his spare time could probably assemble a hotel guide from his knowledge of the road since he’s on it all the time. He says he has such a guide for car trips that tells him where every porn shop is across the US highway of exits.
“It’s the ultimate guide,” he laughs.
Besides, regarding Exxxotica NY, Interlandi wasn’t about to haul the famed Arrow mechanical bull clear across the country to New Jersey. And then there was the fact that the venue changed at the last minute.
“That was in itself a disaster,” he muses. “Imagine all those people who pre-bought their tickets. And that city [Edison] is far away from the other one [Secaucus]. I would have been pissed if I pre-bought that ticket.”
Before he goes to a NY show again, Interlandi said he’d at least like to take a walk-through next time, hoping this new venue doesn’t equal the other for catastrophes. That’s with any show, Interlandi suggests, before he commits to another new one in the future.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says. “I like the new show owners. They’re great guys. I’m just leery of New York shows, period.”
But Interlandi takes heart in the fact that he’s got a better opportunity, at least for Arrow, coming up this week in Las Vegas. It’s the International Lingerie Show at the Rio, and Interlandi, besides the fact that it’s at home for him [“it’s nice to be home for a few days”], has had great success there.
“We’ve done that show for the past five years,” he says. The show begins Monday and goes through Wednesday and includes a fashion show.
“There’s at least 6,000 people looking at the fashion show,” continues Interlandi.
It’s also referred to as the Halloween show which means that the Arrow costumes designed from their classsic films, and the models wearing them are in full scrumptious array.
Interlandi’s got a show special giveaway planned but is keeping that on the down low until the moment it’s announced.
“I want it to be a big surprise,” he tells me. Last year Interlandi had a girl driving an ice chest [pictured].
“We always do pretty well there and manage to find a new licensing deal at that show,” he says. “Besides selling movies you never know what you can sell.”
Interlandi’s going to have four different companies represented at this show.
“But that fashion show is my favorite thing and I look forward to it every year,” he adds. Interlandi recalls last year’s show when he bumped into some penis pill rep at the bar.
“I mean I was drunk,” he laughs. “He was acting crazy, and we almost got into a fight. But I didn’t remember any of it. People were telling me I was acting crazy. I felt so bad because I never act stupid like that. Later I apologized for bumping into him and said I wanted to clear things. He just looks at me and said he didn’t remember any of it, either. We’ve been good friends ever since. You never know who you bump into at a bar at these shows.”