Another amazing TEA weekend has passed and was a resounding success it was.  Almost two weeks later myself, and others are buzzing from the energy and the love in the room.  There are a few things I really love about running this show, my favorite being able to see models winning who really deserve that win but may get overlooked by other award shows for a variety of reasons, and seeing how much it means to them.  Another thing I love is, if it’s too close to call a winner, then we’ll give it as a tie.  Why not?   This year we had the ‘Best Boy/Girl Scene’ as a tie between Transsensual and TransAngels scenes, and then the ‘Best DVD’ was also a tie between Gender X’s Transpirella and Blake Lovely’s Once Upon a TS Summer.  Both fantastic DVDs in their own right, and much deserved of the wins.

What I also love, is that we can add new categories (or remove them) if and when needed, and this year there were two new categories which I introduced as I thought they were needed.

It’s Grooby’s 30th Anniversary Year, and as part of the celebrations I wanted to bring out some of our key staff who have not seen the TEA event.   Alexander is our chief webmaster for 28 years, Grooby’s second ever employee and he works hard and with diligence for that tine, showing a great love of what he does and an empathy for the models we work with.   Why do we never award those who aren’t front facing like the models, or the producers?   There must be dozens of people who have spent decades working with companies like Grooby but behind the limelight – make-up artists, photographers, editors, lighting, script writers, marketing and book-keepers, are just a selection of people who keep this industry running.    So we came up with the new ‘Industry Recognition Award’, sponsoring it ourselves this year and I was honored to get up on stage (which I hate doing) and present it to Alexander, who had no idea it was coming and was surprised, grateful and remained buzzing with his recognition for the rest of the week.   We hope to have this award next year, and see if another company can sponsor it for their staff member.

The second new award came from when one of the judges said, ‘I want to vote for this scene, but there is like 40 people in it, and only 4 trans, so it’s not really a trans scene in itself’.   I understood exactly what he was saying, as I’d watched the scene and found it fascinating and very sexy and well deserving of an award, but it didn’t fit any of our categories.    So we created a new category, which really could have came in a few years ago, as there have been other releases which would have fit.  I don’t think we’ll have nominations for this award, but if the judges feel there is a title that fits, then we will award it.   The new category is ‘Recognition of Inclusion Award’ – given to a scene, a DVD or a company that may not be mainly a trans company, but which includes trans models in their release or releases.   Adult Time’s ‘The Bottom Floor : Second Coming” by Siouxsie Q and Michael Vegas was just such a release, and it really was great to be on stage to see the mayhem unfold when I was able to announce that.   It was very well received, and to see all the non-trans and trans performers come together on stage, and for the photos was beautiful, congratulations to all involved.

The TEAs are always evolving.   We evolve with the trans adult industry and we’re flexible so we can add new categories, or change some.  If you have ideas then please share them with us, as we’re already planning next years show.