Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 292 with Mistress Cyan of Sanctuary Studios and DomCon

This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Side Broker and welcome to Adult Side Broker Talk, where each week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry and we give you a tip on buying and selling websites. This week we'll be speaking with Mistress Cyan of Sanctuary Studios and DomCon. I'll be in Cali, Columbia for the LAL Expo April 27th through the 29th I hope to see many of you there If you'd like to sit down and discuss business contact me at adultsidebroker.com We're proud to announce our latest project thewaronporn.com You'll find articles on age verification laws and other attacks on our industry It's to raise awareness of our industry's plight in the war on porn. You'll find all that and more at thewaronporn.com. Now time for our properties for sale at AdultSite Broker. We have a premium AI companion platform focused on emotional realism and deep memory. Users interact with lifelike companions that remember every detail and respond with real emotion. They've just added advanced video capabilities. We have a network of BDSM subreddits that has over 1.49 million users, over 3.8 million posts, and almost 45,000 comments. The three subreddits feature rough anal, rough sex, and BDSM. We have a buyer who's looking for dating and lifestyle sites in Europe. They'd also consider other geos. They currently operate some very successful sites. We're offering a growing free porn gaming site with adult sex games. The site is owned by one of the top entrepreneurs in our industry. And there's a highly active, organically grown Reddit community centered around the stocking and foot fetish niches. It's one of the leading spaces for adult fetish content on Reddit. For more information, go to our listings page at adultsidebroker.com. Now time for this week's interview. My guest today on Adult Side Broker Talk is Mr. Cyan of Sanctuary Studios and DomCom. Mr. Cyan, thanks for being with us on Adult Side Broker Talk. Oh, thank you for having me. It's quite an honor to be on here with you. It's an honor to have you, and I know we've been working on this for a long time, so I'm glad we're finally doing it. That's great, and thank you to Jay Moyes for being persistent. All right, here we go. So, Mr. Cyan is the owner of Sanctuary Studios, one of the largest safe spaces for BDSM in Southern California. He's also the founder and organizer of DomCom, a BDSM convention held in L.A. and New Orleans. Cyan is secretary on the board of the L.A. Pride Festival and organizes the event's erotic city zone. Mr. Cyan was introduced to the lifestyle in 1989, and through years of commitment to helping others and expanding the fetish scene, has since become a well-respected leader in the LA BDSM, that's a lot of letters, and leather communities. She organizes and hosts fundraisers for local charities. She's not afraid to set new standards, break new ground, or accept responsibility. She pushed hard for transgender acceptance in the L.A. fetish scene and through DomCon and has changed the perception of professional Doms in the leather community. She served as a member of the Los Angeles Leather Coalition Fundraising Committee and has headed numerous social BDSM organizations and events. You can follow DomCon on X at officialdomcon, on IG at official-dash-underscore-domcon. Go to our website at MrSyan.com and DomCon at DomCon.com. All right. So, Mr. Sayan, looking over your bio, that's quite a journey you've been on. How did you get started in kink and the adult industry? Well, it was actually by accident. Isn't everything good? Yeah, you're right. When I came into this, you couldn't find anything. There were no, like, dungeons out here. There were no – everything was underground. And I happened to stumble onto a magazine with kinky contacts in it. And as I scrolled through, it's like, oh, my gosh, there's people out here that do this same thing I'm into. So I decided to go ahead and answer some of those ads. So the old way, you had to write a letter, put it in an envelope. You put the code number on the front, and you put it in another envelope, and you send it to the publisher, and they forward it to the person. And then they would get back with you. And that was my introduction to it. And finally, after communicating and going back and forth with people, I got invited to a birthday party that was actually a play party. And opened my eyes to what the real life community was. I was hooked ever since. Yeah, I guess. And the journey has taken you so far. I mean, all the way to being a dominatrix yourself and DomCon. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I got out of college, I never thought I would be living my life the way I am right now. I came out, got into the corporate world and then moved into the music industry doing talent management and booking shows and concerts. So, BDSM as a living was the farthest thing from my mind. I guess being in management and booking concerts kind of got you acquainted with events, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it actually did. And being trans, when, again, back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, we weren't in a place that we've been like the last decade. Or at least until recently. Yes. That's a whole other story. You know, anything I could find on it, we just dealt with it being a mental illness. So, that was kind of like, that doesn't inspire you to come tell everybody what you're dealing with. So when I was actually dealing with that as my gender identity, but in the music industry, I was able to kind of be myself without coming out, you know, because I was dealing with rock and roll bands and goth and glam. You know, I could have my hair long. I did some eyeliner. I had black fingernails, kind of dressed androgynous. So when the time finally came that I decided to come out and said, hey, I'm going to transition, it was kind of like, oh, that makes sense. We were wondering what was going on. I didn't know if it was like if you were gay or just glam or what was going on. With the long hair and the eyeliner, you'd look just like the musicians. Yeah. So it wasn't a shock value, which made it people easy to accept with me. It wasn't like going in one day in a suit and the next day in a dress. People were like, what the fuck? Yeah, I can only imagine what the shock value would be there. Yeah, the rock and roll industry is pretty open. Pretty much. I mean, you had the image, though, of metal and things like that. You know, you don't really notice exactly how open it can be until you actually get into it and find out that there's some places it's not as open as you think. And other places where you're concerned, like the record executives. And I thought, they were like, open arms, congratulations. We're glad you're following your heart. You know, what would you do to help? Hey, you know, being in L.A., I'll never forget. I think it was the group, The Miracles, and they did a song called Ain't Nobody Straight in LA. And I think that kind of says it all about Los Angeles and, of course, my hometown of San Francisco. Really, anything goes and has for a long time. Yeah, very open my mind. We're very fortunate. I'm very fortunate to be in LA and in California. And I'm in Thailand now, so there you go. You were talking a little bit about being transgender and coming out. It's got to be very disheartening to see the current administration, the person whose name I won't mention, doing what they're doing to trans people and kind of trying to make them disappear. Yes, it really is. I mean, I grew up in a time, I'm 71, I grew up in a time when queer was a slur. You could actually, at one time, be arrested for holding hands of the same gender. could are wearing the opposite clothes i think in some states you still can yeah and and maybe more the way it's going and then it progressed into you know like early 2000s a bit and 10 years ago or so where it was like wow things are so open i never thought of me in my lifetime and now here i here we are now where it's being put back and we're going backwards and at least when i was experiencing all this, you had less vocal people against it. It wasn't okay to show your hate. But now, this president has made it okay to hate. It's made it acceptable to not accept someone who's not like you. And I think that's the real tragedy of it all. It's not only going to be with gender, it's going to be whether you're, as we can see, if you're Hispanic, if you are black, if you are gay. I mean, where does this stop? We're kind of asking that because not that long ago, and this was during Biden's administration, but it was the Supreme Court that was put in by that person whose name I won't mention, overturned Roe v. Wade. And that, to me, was when all the alarm bells started to go off. You're right. You're right. That was like the big red flag that something's getting real. Yeah. Yeah. Very unfortunate. Well, things always turn again. I was hopeful last night listening and watching a podcast that President Obama did with Mark Maron on his last WTF podcast, which I wasn't familiar with. I was familiar with Mark, but I wasn't familiar with his podcast in 16 years. Wow. He's probably not familiar with mine either, though, so there you go. But it was hopeful hearing the president talk. And to me, that's the last president. Well, I guess Biden was a president, but, you know, the last real president we had was Obama. The last real commander in chief, the last man who really had everything under control and made things better for Americans, especially Americans who had been previously ostracized. Yes, yes. You know, I'm optimistic that whatever happens in this administration, we will get back to what we've been and what we were. But it's just the question is how long is it going to take? Yeah, that's a good question. It's scary. Yeah, it's a very good question. He's doing damage really fast now. Yeah, exactly. So let's get back to your story, back when you were first getting started. Did you see yourself becoming a major leader, such as being on the board of Pride and running DomCon, or were your ambitions somewhat different? No, not at all. I mean, all these things just kind of happened organically. With L.A. Pride, I got back in 2005, I got asked to help put together a kink BDSM fetish area at the festival. So as a volunteer, I went in and helped with that. And it went over really well. I had a great time. It felt really fulfilling, putting that together and seeing community come out. And as doing it each year, it got to the point that they, back in 2016, asked me to join the board. And stuff which I was honored to do. And actually, I term out in October 26. So, I got one more year left before I stepped down. But I see myself continuing to work with them in the future. It's a great organization. Yes. Yes, it absolutely is. Just like San Francisco Pride is, they're both unique in their own way, but they're both amazing events, New York Pride, and obviously Pride events all over the world. As someone who's transgender, how has BDSM and the industry accepted you as a member and leader and what challenges have been involved? Well, it's been a test of time, let's say. When I first came out doing pro work in the mid-90s, I wasn't accepted at all. I was told that I didn't belong in this business, that being trans, I wasn't a real woman and should be in this business. I had people calling me a man in a dress. Yeah, I'm like 5'10", like 125 pounds. And I actually had one person said, oh my God, it's a man. I'm not looking to go see a wrestler. And I'm thinking, wrestler? I was far away at that as you can see. But it was really a challenge. And it came from both the client side and it came from a lot of the pros that were in the industry. And there's still people that, unfortunately, still feel like that. I mean, in 2014 at DomCon in Atlanta, I actually had a Dom come up to me and tell me that I didn't belong there. And I didn't belong being a pro-Dom. That was a women's. And that I shouldn't be at that event. And I thought, what the fuck? It's my event. Exactly. Being in the South, I can't say that I'm shocked. Yeah. But the rest, that was only one person, though. Everybody, anybody who heard it, spoke up and said, wait a minute, that's inappropriate. If you're going to feel like that, you should leave. But it just shows that there's some things out there and there's some people that no matter how much we change as a community or a society, you're always going to have those people out there that are going to see it that way. And whether it's their religious upbringing or cultural upbringing or what, I don't know. But I do know that no matter what, hate and that feeling that everybody should be like you and not be different. Unfortunately, I think it's going to remain part of the humanity for a long time. Yeah, they were talking about that during that podcast. I should say we're doing this interview in October, and it will run early in 2026. So what is Sanctuary Studios, and how has that evolved from when you first opened the door? Oh, in 1999, I hooked up with another mistress named Mistress Omega. And I was, I'll backtrack a little bit. In 96, I hooked up with one named Mistress Maiden. We opened up our own little dungeon. It was a three-level townhouse that was only dungeon space. And the owners were fine. They told them it was the right photography because it comes to everything. But the complex got sold. And when it got sold, the new owners came to a walkthrough and the expression on their face was not good. And they smiled and said, we're not going to renew your lease. So at that point, Mistress Omega was going to be opening up a space up in the Sanctana Valley in Reseda and contacted me and said, would you like to partner with me and one other person, Mistress Nicole? I said, great, yeah. So we opened up this 15-square-foot space on the Cedar Boulevard right in the busy street. And we had that for about a year, kind of branding it as Sanctuary and Omega's Lair. And at that point, Mistress Omega was dealing with some things in her life, so she had to step away. And Nicole didn't want to go in more, so I picked up Omega's third. So I had two thirds. And shortly thereafter, mistress Nicole, who had been trying to get pregnant and have a kid, finally got pregnant and had to step away. So I took on the whole thing. And I ran that until 2011. And in 2011, I had the opportunity to take over a space over by LAX. And we did that. And Sanctuary LAX opened with 7,000 square feet. And we were over there until 2022. Throughout the pandemic, we paid our rent, everything. But unfortunately, in 2022, the owner came to me and said he wanted to refi his property. And the lender would not give him a good interest rate because he considered what we do high risk. So we didn't get a lease. Gotta love those banks. Yeah. I mean, I hear it was. We already signed two leases. We paid through our pandemic. We were willing to do another lease and they look at it as high risk and go figure. But it worked out for the best because we relocated. We found a building that's about seven miles away, but it's a little bit small. It's 5,000 square feet, but we were able to buy it. Good. No more problems with landlords unless you argue with yourself. Yeah, and I have a policy of not doing that. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. But yeah, the sheriffs know, the city knows, the county knows, the Chamber of Commerce knows what we do and what we are. It's been totally transparent. So, you know, we've got the support of all this. We pay our taxes. We do all the stuff that we're supposed to do, stay on the legal side of things. And in January, we'll be entering our 27th year in a business. That's incredible. Congratulations. How much content creation do DOMS and BDSM professionals do in comparison with live sessions? Right now, I think the content is probably bringing in more for the girls than their sessions are. The current economy is really taking a hit. I saw an article the other day that said in the financial publication that right now they consider 22 states to be either in recession or on the brink of it. Oh, the country's in it. Come on. They can put lipstick on a pig, but the bottom line is it's a recession anyway. You look at it. Yeah. And when you've got sessions that are $300 an hour, $350 an hour, it starts cutting in people's budgets. And that's, unfortunately, some of the things. So they've started doing a little bit more with content. And the girls are in here since they're here between sessions. They can go into one of the dungeon rooms. They can shoot some video. Or they can get on a cam and stuff. And it just supplements the session work, which has really gone there. I mean, let's face it. I mean, the whole creator economy with OnlyFans and all the other adjacent sites, it's gone crazy. How have you viewed all of that? I mean, because you've been in the industry for a long time. So, how do you view the creator economy, where it's gone and where it's going? I think where it's come has been great. Okay. It's really opened things up to people. And you can have a client base around the world. And one of our sponsors, Just for Fans, has been great as far as, you know, if you have an issue and you're not sure you're new and you don't know how to do this and you don't have the ability to just like read something, go, oh, I got it. You know, they have support. Yeah. Dominic has put together a wonderful organization there. He's been on the podcast twice, and I feel confident he'll be on very soon. Oh, I love him. And his team is like that, too. They're very user-friendly as far as like helping you out and stuff. And I just worry sometimes that if it gets too saturated, it could become a problem. Well, it is. I mean, not only have the individual platforms, I mean, OnlyFans is the best example, my dear God. If there aren't 100,000 creators on there, there must be darn near. I mean, how does anybody get any kind of attention? Yeah. It's like when clips for sale and those kind of things started up in the beginning, it was really, really good. And even cam sites, you know, I think I hear from Jay once in a while. You know, even the cam sites, you click onto a cam site and who's available right now? 10,000 people or something. The content creation is not just some little go in there, shoot the video like TikTok or something. The people who are serious about it, you know, shoot it, they edit it, they fix it, you know, do things with sound. They make it good production quality and give quality to the person who's buying their content. But marketing has got to be really tough right now. Oh, it's huge. That's why there's so many OnlyFans agencies. And there are some very good ones and there are some that aren't so great. Yeah, I think some of the girls here have the one nice thing that they have is we have enough dungeon rooms that they can shoot their content in a real dungeon. It's not like in a bedroom or a garage or a living room. We've got the cages and we've got the crosses and we've got the crucifixes and the bondage tables and different lighting and stuff, you know, suspension. So they can actually have good versatility and variety in their content. And not to mention that, you know, they do a lot of collaboration. You know, I got DOM subs and switches here. So they'll go in there and say, hey, let's go do something. We'll split up our content. I'll take some. You take some. And they have somebody that they don't have to necessarily pay their talent or anything. They can do content shares and content splits. Absolutely. Now, do you see much of a crossover between DOMS and Kami? Not as much as I did. I saw a lot more of it, it seemed like, three or four years ago. But I think what's happened is with DOMS, I think they're focusing a little bit more on investing in themselves and marketing. and getting more into some of the, maybe the production of things and investing their time and energy into their marketing, maybe doing a little bit less and making their time a little bit more efficient so that instead of flooding it with the amount of content and quantity, it's more about the quality of it. Yeah, absolutely. By the way, Ken, if models who aren't already familiar with you want to rent studios, rent rooms at sanctuary studios for shooting content or streaming? Can they do that? And if so, how would they go about it? Oh, absolutely. We have rooms available for any of that, or even if there's somebody who are doing in-person sessions, we do rentals for that. And I've also got people that, like couples who have kids or couples who they've got roommates and can't play at home, will come rent when they play at the dungeon. Either that or they lock the kids in the dungeon and go out fun. Go play outside. Get off the internet. Go play in the dungeon. Yeah, but they can go to our website, which is sanctuarylax.com, or they can email me at mistresscian at gmail.com for information. But if they're local and they just want to rent a room, they can go right to our website. There's pictures on there. They can call up the front desk and reserve a specific room if they have a bit. Or they can just come and actually they can just come walking in and rent whatever rooms available. Fantastic. Why did you start DomCon and how does the show relate to the adult industry? Oh, interesting. Well, as with most of us, we start by being lifestyle. And there was a time when I first started that Yahoo had this whole system called Yahoo Groups. And there was a fandom group that I was a part of. And one day I went to go log in and I couldn't log in. So I thought, did my login get changed or whatever? So I contacted the moderator and she said, oh, well, you were kicked out. You're not allowed in this group because you're a professional and this is for lifestyle. And it's like, but I've been lifestyle a lot longer than pro. And she said, well, we just don't allow pros. So I thought, well, let me go ahead and do an event that can bring this together. And just about the time I did that, I got invited to an event in San Francisco, of course, that said it was a kind of a pro-dom event. And I went up there. And with all due respect, it was not planned well. I knew there wasn't going to be a second one. So I came back to L.A. and resumed planning for DomCon. And I thought it was going to be a, you know, I wanted it to be a nice L.A. event to bring to people. And within probably 45 days of announcing, it became a big national event. And the people who were the negative about it told me, this is never going to work. Your lifestyle is not going to mesh with the pros. The pros are going to try to one-up each other. They're not going to want to share business. There's going to be egos and attitudes. And none of that happened. None of it happened. And when the first SomCon in 2004 ended, people were talking. The lifestyle people told me, wow, I'm glad you did that. The pro people are real. They're not just Barbie doll looking for the money. And the pros came to me and said, wow, you know something? We went to some of the classes that these lifestyle people were teaching. They really know what they're doing. So it kind of just opened up people's, their ability to look beyond just what they were doing. Just because they were called pro doesn't mean that the other people that are lifestyle people were hobbyists. that there were serious people, and there were serious people on both sides. Not to say that there are not some people in the pro that just does feel like they want to make the money off of it or something, but you're going to find that anywhere. Don't get hit by the train, by the way. Yeah, yeah, we have a train that runs across from us. It was very interesting, and the adult industry came into it because of the ability to market to people who want to buy their equipment or buy the toys or, you know, use content over the years. It's gotten more into people who are doing content, coming and getting a booth and sponsoring and stuff as well. That's fantastic. You know, mentioning San Francisco, which is, of course, my hometown. Did you ever make it up to the Why Not show up there where they had the final night party at kink.com when that was still a thing? No. Oh, I did not. Oh, my God. It was so cool. I mean, first of all, I had never been introduced to BDSM. And I'm with my wife. And I don't even know if she was my wife then. She probably wasn't. And we were at the Kink Castle. And they were doing live BDSM shoots. And I'm like, whoa, this is interesting. And my wife's like, yeah. You know, I mean, she's kind of conservative, but very open. And the King Castle was just amazing. Did you ever go there? Oh, you mean the armory? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I actually went up in 2013 to meet with Peter. We were setting up Sanctuary as a studio that was going to shoot King Live from Sanctuary. So I got to go up there and spend a weekend and got to meet and get to know Peter really well, stayed overnight in the armory. Amazing, amazing place. Yeah. It's a shame that they, that that ran its course because, I mean, it used to be the old, you know, National Guard Armory and the conversion job they did was just incredible because that place was just rotting. And Peter just did some amazing work. And, you know, I've been a fan of his for a very long time as an operator And Kink is still going. They don't have the Kink Castle anymore, but Kink is still going strong. So that's fantastic. That he did to clean up the neighborhood, too. It's amazing. He had to get the neighbors in those businesses to basically approve. And he did a lot of work to upgrade the whole area. Just amazing. Did you run into challenges with DomCon LA in regards to hotels and the police when you first started? And do you have any good stories to tell? Oh, gosh, we've got 10 of them. But did I run into any problems? Well, the biggest problem was when we first, we hadn't had any history. You know, we hadn't done it before. So trying to get that first hotel, raised eyebrows, and again, this is 2003. And by the hotel, we went to the Marriott. We went to most, you know, you name them, we went to them. And they're all like, I don't know if this is going to, our corporate may not go for this. Or we don't want to alienate our attention. You know, people come to the hotel. We're not sure we should be associated with this. And there was a hotel that was a part of the Holiday Inn chain. And I called the Beverly Garland Hotel. Oh, yes. Yes. I remember that well. In North Hollywood. Yes. I think I stayed there when I was a kid, if I'm not mistaken. They were very open-minded and said, yeah, let's give it a shot. And we had the event there. Everything went successful. We had it there a second year. That's when we kind of grew out of the space. And we had to move. We found a place down by the hotel, I mean, by the airport called the Sheraton. And we did one there, but they were kind of like, this might be a little bit much for us. And that's when the Hilton came on board and was open with us. And this will be our 20th year in a row at the Hilton. Wow. Is this Hilton LAX? Hilton LAX. Okay. Well, I know both those hotels very well. Excellent. I guess if you make enough trips to LA, you spend a lot of time at airport hotels. So, yes, I know the neighborhood. There's also a really cool jazz club in that area, too. The funny story, though, is on that first one, Mistress Precious was flying in from Houston. And she was one of the first ones to book a room. So she booked a presidential suite. So she comes in and she checks in. She goes up. And instead of the dining room and living rooms like that, it's just this big, long, like meeting boardroom type of table in there with all these chairs. So she's like, what the hell is this? So she comes back down to registration. She says, what's going on with my room? You know, and he goes, oh, oh, that's a police thing to hear this weekend. You know, there's a dominatrix convention. And she's like, oh, yeah, really? Well, I'm one of them. And so they apologized and gave her another room and stuff like that. But apparently, I'm not sure if they were there because of it, but I'm sure they were. But everything went great. It went fantastic. The only people that got in trouble on the weekend was the fire department, Because they showed up with outside, I guess, curiosity with one of their fire trucks. And all the doms were out there getting pictures with the firemen and sitting on the fire truck. And I guess it got published and they got in trouble for it. You can't do this. You can't have this kind of stuff on county equipment. Oh, my God. That's hilarious. I love it. If that was the biggest problem, then it wasn't a problem. No. The biggest real problem we had was in 2015, and that was because in 2014 in Atlanta, about 10 days before the event, we got a call from the hotel that the previous hurricane that they had had. There was water damage, and the city found black mold, so they were going to have to tear out the ballroom. And we're like, ah! So we found another hotel downtown Atlanta, the Radisson, and they were fantastic. Space was great. The people were wonderful. And asked us to come back in 2015. And we were excited about it. And then in June 2015, I got diagnosed with cancer. I was in treatment, so I couldn't make it down to Atlanta in October. But I get this phone call. Mistress, they changed ownership and management. And you know how great they were last year? Not like that anymore. The totals run down. They're assholes. You know, it reminds me of the Tempe Mission Palms for years, hosted the Phoenix Forum. And then some friends of mine put together an event long after the Phoenix Forum had finished and tried to do their event, which was supposed to be kind of a reunion of the Phoenix Forum at the Tempe Mission Palms. And they gave them so much hassle. They're owned by Hyatt Corp now. And they gave them so much hassle that they moved to another hotel to, I think it was a Weston. We took in, that's when I got frustrated. You know what, we've been in that land 12 years. We just got through having to find a hotel after this mall situation. I'm not going to do it again. So we decided, let's look at Chicago, New Orleans, or New York and see where we want to move it. And the people in New Orleans got back to me. They were very enthusiastic about it. We flew down there, met them, toward the hotel. They thought, oh my God, this is great. It's right in the corner of the French Quarter. So in 2016, we moved to New Orleans. So this will be our 10-year in New Orleans. Wow. And as they say, the rest is history. What opportunities for the adult industry do you see when it comes to DomCon? You've got so many professionals and BDSM from doms to educators and, of course, consumers. I think there's a huge opportunity for adult industry here about networking, about the education. I mean, you probably remember there was a time where you wouldn't see when porn was all about sex. If there was anything really kink about it, it was like, ooh, what the hell are they doing there? That's sick. What, kissing? It's evolved so that there's a lot of kink and fetish and things that got into the porn industry. And when you're dealing with something like DomCon, where the level of expertise is on there, you can find talent. As we were talking earlier, it's not the opportunity for people to do content and finding quality content and hooking up with people that you can collaborate with. And I think that's going to be the key to the success with content creators, actually, in my opinion. It's going to be the collaboration, the cross-marketing between me tapping into your market while you tap into our market. And better place to go for the adult industry than some place that maybe has a little bit different market than what you're used to. The whole key to success is going to be expanding our market. Yeah. Well, this will air shortly after your latest New Orleans DomCon. What's the difference between the L.A. show and the New Orleans show? Okay, New Orleans, we hold that in October. L.A. is usually the end of May. As far as the event itself goes, it's pretty much the same structure. We've got the classes, we've got the workshops, the socials, the parties, the vendors, the stage performances throughout the days. But what the difference is, is the people. In New Orleans, it's a very lifestyle-oriented event, okay? It's very lifestyle and education-oriented. In L.A., it's more glitzy, enormous. We get a lot of people come from around the country. L.A., we get people from around the world. It's more of a high exposure type of thing, very glitzy, very glamorous. People from Asia and Africa and Europe and Canada and South America, all these places coming to it. And it can be a little bit overwhelming because there's so much. It's a couple thousand people. But we've got the, at the LA, you will meet the people you've only heard about online or the people you've seen their video but maybe never thought you were going to meet on there. It's just a high visibility, high networking thing. We have a lot of content creators. We have a lot of people who are looking to a network within the industry, whether it's to bring people onto their platform, find new platforms, find new business models as far as, you know, like whether they're web hosting or, I mean, I don't think there's any limit on, you know, you can tell me something that would say, oh, that probably wouldn't fit there. We've had people podcast from the floor. That's a thought. One of these days, I'm going to make it out there. That would be great. That would be fantastic. L.A. Pride is a big deal, obviously. What's your role at Pride and how is Sanctuary involved with L.A. Pride? Well, as I spoke earlier with Erotic City, with getting started there over the years, that sanctuary is kind of, because I'm on the board, I'm bringing sanctuary. When we do Erotic City, that's my main focus. I'm also an officer, you know, I've been board secretary for eight years, I'm an officer for LA Pride and the LA Weather Coalition. But when we do Erotic City, Sanctuary plays a big role because not only do we help with some of the equipment, but a lot of our pros go out and they will be doing these little taster boots. So we'll have areas that people can come stand in line and get up on the cross and get blogged or they can get on a horse and get spanked or they can get put in a cage and get their pictures taken. Erotic City has some vendors. It has shows and performances. But I think the biggest attraction to that is the interactive. It's not something you attend. It's something you experience. And that's what Sanctuary kind of brings it to it. We have the trained personnel and the people who love what they're doing to go down there and let people experience these things and answer their questions and stuff. Excellent. What kind of fundraisers do you have during the year? Tell me about these slave auctions I've heard about. Ooh, I love that. Well, one thing we did is just a few weeks ago, we did a fundraiser called Kink for a Cause. And based on the person who we won't name stripping funds for my cancer research and stuff, we decided to do a fundraiser for St. Jude's Children's Cancer Research Hospital. And we went over, we raised $5,000 and gave them a check for $5,000. The slave auction is something we've had at Sanctuary. I actually started it just before I opened Sanctuary with partnering with another dungeon. And what that is, we have people that volunteer to go up on stage for the night and get auctioned off, subs and sometimes doms. And the people bring food and toys, sometimes toiletries, diapers, blankets. And they exchange that for auction dollars. And people go up and they fill out a questionnaire about what their interests are and what their limits are. And they go up on the stage and I've got one person who they'll read off from their questionnaire, you know, what their interests are and everything else. And I have another person who's like a professional auctioneer. And he starts the auction. And one of the funny things is one of the people, one of the guys that one of my hosts is Sir Valentino Harrison, who happens to be a black man. So he'll go up there and say, oh, my God, I can't believe, you know, can you, Mr. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to have a black man auction off all these white people. I love it. Talk about the tables being turned. I mean, we've had over the last couple of years, people here and there say, well, you know, we don't like the title. but it gives us an opportunity to educate too. This is not about race. This is about role. Okay. And also, you know, it's not derogatory. In BDSM, you know, somebody who identifies, quote, as slave, it identifies that what they do is they derive fulfillment from making a difference in somebody else's life. Okay. It's a commitment. So, you know, we're trying to teach people too that don't go get home on a word. Learn a little bit about what that is, because as I said earlier, too, the word queer when I was young was a slur. And now it's something that's been embraced. So, you know, we need to sometimes understand the meaning behind something and not just don't. But we every November and December, we do a slave auction and we donate a whole truckload of food in November to MCC Church and the food banks. So people have food for Thanksgiving. And then in December, we donate the toys to like the Trevor Foundation or Trevor Project, Children's Hospital, MCC Church, the fire department to distribute. Because it just it makes everybody feel like, wow, you know, we can't fix homelessness and we can't feed the world. But you know what? What we're doing makes the difference in somebody's life. Oh, big time. That's the way you have to look at charity, too. Yeah, it's the fulfillment that you get in your heart for knowing that, hey, I did something that's meaningful to somebody. It's not, they don't even know where it's coming from. But that's not important. It's not about, hey, this is what we did. You know, there's no amount of money that could give you that same feel. Just like in BDSM, there's an experience you have when you're doing BDSM and the connection you have with the person you're playing and the bond. Just unlike no other, you can't say, oh, it's like the same as such and such. And to me, doing things like the slave auction and feeding people, having toys for kids that may not have a toy on Christmas. You know, it just feels very fulfilling. It feels like you have purpose. Absolutely. Are you still working with the AVN show in Las Vegas? And tell us more about Sanctuary's role there. Okay, yeah, I still am. Doing that every year since 2016. this year and since 2016 I've done the AVN called the Lair Fetish Party we're doing that again this year on Friday January 23rd at a club called the Usual Place where we had it last year which was fantastic the Usual Place I like that oh isn't that great I mean what a name I wish I would have thought of it yeah exactly you say oh where yeah where's that oh it's at the Usual Place you know At the convention itself, the conference itself, AVN has sanctuary there. And we have this really great booth with stage and everything. And we have equipment there. And we're doing the taster things all weekend long with people who are coming in, went and explore about what that is. They can watch some performances that we're doing. They can come up and get spanked. We have something like a wheel that we call the wheel of torture, That people can come up and spin it and see if it lands on spanking or flogging or caning or whatever. So they can come spin the wheel of torture and come up and receive what. And again, the sanctuary's got a lot of our pro-dom substance, which is there manning the booth, explaining to people, giving some kind of a little bit of education on what it is, explaining how and why we're doing things. Let them experience it. And I love AVN for the fact that they've, I know it hasn't been easy for them because Las Vegas is very conservative when it comes to BDSM. Probably one of the toughest places in the country for BDSM. It seems like they'll tolerate prostitution, but they don't want to tolerate that. It kind of reminds me of Thailand. You know, they tolerate prostitution, but they don't tolerate porn. And I know with the hotels, the Avian has been over the years, that's been a touchy area, but they haven't succumbed to it. They haven't allowed the hotels to push them in to not be able to do it. We've had to downscale it in the last two years because when we were doing it at the Hard Rock, they were very open and we had a great space. But since they've moved into different hotels that have changed ownership, we've gotten a little bit of pushback, but they haven't relented. They still have us there. They still give us representation. Oh, are you going to tell me that Richard Branson's conservative? Really? No, but some of his people are. I guess so. Okay. Yeah. I'm actually – I haven't been to Avian since it was at Resorts World where I wasn't really thrilled about the layout. No. And, of course, I'm not a huge Vegas guy anyway, but we won't get into that. Anyway, so as someone who's done so much, what goals do you have ahead and are there any boxes you still have unchecked? Well, I have a few. You know, with Sanctuary, I wanted to continue to be bigger and better. I want to bring better education. We do a lot of classes and workshops here during the week at night for DomCon. I want to bring DomCon to Europe and Australia. right before the pandemic, I was probably a week away from signing contracts to do DomCon Amsterdam. And then I got this phone call that says, well, we're getting shut down. There's something called COVID and they're shutting us down. So, it put everything back on hold then. Well, in Australia, where would you do it there? I'm talking to some people around Sydney. Excellent. Excellent. Well, if you need some adult industry contacts in Australia, My developer, Zach, is down in Queensland, and he is so well-wired in the adult industry, as are other people that I know down there. So I'm happy to put you together with people. I am going to take you up on that. And I also want to, you know, long-term, what I would love to see in Europe is us to go into Berlin and Paris and London and Amsterdam and rotate to a year, rotate the location. Yeah, I would think maybe something adjacent to Venus would be successful. Yeah, I'm looking at something. I'm at an age right now that I got goals. I don't necessarily want to put all that time and effort. One of these days I'll retire. I'm just having too much fun right now. I can tell. The enthusiasm is in your voice. Yeah, so I'm looking for people to work with that can take DomCon and I can give the guidance and stuff and find maybe a licensing or partnering with or something like that overseas. Because after going into our 23rd year DomCon to a year, it's a lot of work and it's all worth it. But it's not something I want to continue to hear and add that much more onto my plate. on well. So, my goal is to kind of find a few more people that I can network with and bring that over there. Let somebody else do the heavy lifting at this point. I'll be 68 in eight days and I completely understand. I've trimmed back my travel, so I understand what you're talking about. Mr. Sayan, I'd like to thank you for being with us today on Adult Site Broker Talk, and I hope we'll get a chance to do this again soon. Well, I hope so. I really enjoy the show. So I get told you to be here. I'm honored to be here. And anytime you'll have me in, I'd love to come back and talk with you. Anytime. And DomCon Los Angeles is May 27th through 31st. If there's anybody out there listening, just go to domcon.com. You can check out what we're all about and see if I'll book in your room and your tickets early. Sounds good. Thank you. My broker tip today is part eight of what to do to make your site more valuable for when you decide to sell it later. Last week, we talked about information needed to give the buyer and being transparent with the buyer. Here's more information on what to give to a potential buyer. How well has your content been protected from piracy and what steps have you taken to protect your content? Are you using a piracy takedown or monitoring service? These are important things to know. What promotional tools do you offer to your affiliates? The more tools you offer, the more successful your affiliates will be. What does your traffic breakdown by country? Tier 1 countries like the USA, Canada, the UK, Germany, and Australia are the most preferred. Add in anything else that will add value to the sale of your property that you can think of, such as what custom scripts do you use? What content management system software is on your site? Do you use billing or affiliate software like NATS? What's your retention rate? How you retain your members is of the utmost importance. How many joins and rebills do you have a day? Do you buy advertising? And if so, what kind? Can your content make more money on the DVD or VOD markets? Or have you already tapped into those opportunities? How much did you spend to produce or buy the content that's on your site? What do you believe the content is worth now? We'll talk about this subject more next week. And next week, we'll be speaking with Ms. Sexy Saigon. And that's it for this week's Adult Side Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest, Mr. Cyan of Sanctuary Studios and DomCon. Talk to you again next week on Adult Side Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.