Good news, porn awards fans! This year's GAYVN Awards are on! GAYVN made it official this week that their annual awards presentation will definitely take place this year--just not as normally scheduled. This year the 2010 awards will take place in conjunction with the annual Folsom Street Fair in SF in late September. According to GAYVN the presentation will take place on either September 25 or 26, depending on the venue and in early April the date will be made official. 

 What this means is that the 12th annual GAYVN Awards will be similar to the Grabbys which hold its awards in conjunction with the IML in Chicago on Memorial Day weekend. As you know the Folsom Street Fair is a well-attended and well-sponsored event so the GAYVN Awards will benefit greatly from being moved to this weekend. Naked Sword returns as "presenting sponsor" for the awards as well as for the Folsom Street Fair and seems very enthused about it.

  The change in venue and date from April to September also means a change in the nominations deadline--and this is BIG. The deadline for nominations has been moved to June 15 AND the eligibility for nominations has been expanded. In order to qualify for a nomination a production has to have been released between January 1, 2009 and May 31, 2010! In addition, newcomers, promotions, marketing campaigns, etc must also have debuted during the same time frame. This has to be viewed as exciting news for studios & performers whose work has come out this year and is still yet to be released!  

  As if these above changes aren't enough the GAYVN Awards themselves have gone through a major overhaul. There are fewer categories this year as a result of several being combined and/or eliminated. In some cases we can see the rationale because certain past categories are outdated. There are other instances where the eliminated categories are somewhat shocking (more this below). On the other hand web-based categories have increased, another reflection of the influences of the online video genre. With all these changes there are undoubtedly bound to be even more nominations per category which will certainly make for a lengthy process. Lets hope that if the awards are now permanently moving to this new venue & time then next year the field should be less voluminous.

  As mentioned before DVD and web categories are included in this year’s lineup and there will a second  Trailblazer award presented along with inductees into the GAYVN Hall of Fame. As we mentioned above there have been some major changes to the list of categories from last year to this year. Here's how it all breaks down:

 --The DVD categories that remain unchanged are Best Actor, Best All-Sex Video, Best Cumshot, Best Director, Best Duo Sex Scene, Best Group Sex Scene, Best HD Feature, Best Newcomer, Best Picture, Best Solo Performance, Best Supporting Actor, Performer of the Year, Hall of Fame, & Trailblazer.
 
 --Altered categories are Best Marketing (which goes from "campaign" to "company image" ; Best Videography (changed from Best Cinematography).

 --Best Alternative Release now includes all fetish, ethnic and niche-oriented titles. In other words blacks. latins, bears, twinks, leather, fetish, bisexual genres no longer have separate categories. We're not sure if this includes foreign releases and sex comedies because both these categories have also been eliminated. 

  --Eliminated performing categories include Best Actor-Foreign Release, Best Bottom, Best Fetish Performer, Best Top, & Best Non-Sex Performance.

 --Eliminated from the scenes category are Best Oral Scene & Best Threesome.

 --Eliminated creative categories are almost mindboggling. They include Best Art Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best DVD Extras, Best DVD Special Edition, Best Music, Best Packaging, Best Pro-Am Film, Best Classic DVD release, and Best Amateur Film. We can imagine more than a few people having major issues with GAYVN over these choices.

 --The new categories are Best Renting Title of the Year, Best Selling Title of the Year, Best Web-to-DVD Release, and Studio of the Year.

  As we mentioned the web categories have increased and/or been altered.  They include Best Affiliate Program, Best Blog/Gossip Site, Best Genre Site (solo, amateur, twink, bear, ethnic, fetish/leather, etc.), Best Live Webcam/Webshow, Best Mega Site, Best Porn Star Site, Best Retail/VOD Site, Best Web-Based Marketing/Promotion Effort (single title, studio, performer, event, cause, etc.), Web Performer of the Year, &
Website of the Year.

 Obviously there's more to follow...