Serious film fans flock to cities like Toronto, Salt Lake City and Berlin when film festivals are happening, hoping to catch a glimpse of their favourite movie stars, perhaps headed to a gala or, even better, having a casual drink or dinner just before their premiere. Seeing the films? A secondary consideration.
So when gay adult entertainment models descend on Palm Springs for the annual conference and anniversary party of JustFor.Fans, one of the top fan sites for adult entertainers, their admirers are sure to follow, looking to catch porn star sightings at the resort town’s boutiques, restaurants and many gay bars.
The JustFor.Fans conference and party from May 3 to 6, 2026, typically attracts more than 400 adult entertainment models or—as many describe themselves these days—content creators who want to improve their skills and build their brand in the adult entertainment industry. In addition to attending workshops, seminars and presentations, participants network to find out what their peers are up to and to connect with them for future collaborations. If a big hairy leatherman creator, for example, gets good vibes from a skinny skater-boy twink creator, then maybe they can shoot some scenes together that result in hot entertainment, while also winning over each other’s followers. The right collaboration can be win-win-win. It’s kind of a porn university, where your class work turns into real money.
For non-models/non-creators who join the Palm Springs party during those five days, there’s the fun of spotting favourite creators and partying with porn stars in one of the United States’ most gay-friendly destinations. Even those who don’t know Griffin Barrows from Gabriel Cross, Deep Filler from Rhyheim Shabazz will enjoy all the uninhibited eye candy partying all over Palm Springs that weekend.
Among fan sites—that is, social media–style platforms where users subscribe to the feeds of their favourite sex-industry performers in order to see content, often sexually explicit content—JustFor.Fans is known to be particularly gay and fetish friendly. That’s mostly because the platform was founded by Dominic Ford, who has worked in front of and behind the camera in the gay adult entertainment industry since 2008. Founder of the now-defunct production company DominicFord.com, he launched JustFor.Fans in 2018 as a sex worker–friendly rival to OnlyFans. In fact, all the employees of the platform have done or are doing sex work.
Wander+Lust talked to Ford about the conference and party, and what makes Palm Springs the perfect place to host it.
The annual conference and party isn’t the only event that JustFor.Fans hosts. Last December you hosted your first CollabWeek in Puerto Vallarta. How did that go, and what’s the difference between CollabWeek and the conference?
CollabWeek was incredible. I was shocked by how many people came and how necessary it seemed. People made connections that will live well beyond the week. I’ve lived in Puerto Vallarta in the winter for the last six years. I’ve gotten to see how creator-friendly the town is. In my world, there are two types of acceptance. There are places that are accepting of LGBTQ2S+ people, but then there are places that accept the creator community, the porn community. Just because people are LGBTQ2S+-positive doesn’t mean they want that element in their destination. Puerto Vallarta is fine with it. People had a great time.
The annual conference is not as party focused, though there are certainly tons of events where models can hang out and have fun; it’s much more of an educational event with expert panels, group discussions and keynote speakers. Topics like, if you’re an American, how do you create a business? What’s deductible? Or maybe, how do you do your lighting? What camera settings do you use? How do you save your assets so that you’ll be able to use them later? All the nuts and bolts of production.
Sounds intense. There must be a fun side?
We have parties around town every night at various establishments. There’s a dark room that we have set up in the hotel for filming. Daytime is spent by the pool at the host hotel. Everybody hangs out there, and from there people go off to do collabs or go to classes. Or you could just lounge in the sun all day.
A dark room with enough lighting for filming?
Yes, exactly. It is a dark room where you bring your own ring light. It’s not a dark room for people who want to be in the dark.
It strikes me that in the old world of porn, you just needed a good body, a large piece of equipment and a willingness to show up on time for a shoot. But nowadays models have to be able to look after the financial and administrative sides of things, to know how to use the technology, to be charming enough with other models to set up collaborations, and to be willing and able to interact with fans. With that, I’d guess the attendees would be a very friendly, very social group.
Guys in porn these days need to be renaissance men. They can’t just do one thing well. They need to do a bunch of things well, things that were taken care of for them by the studios back when the studios dominated. They need to be able to talk to fans. They need to be able to communicate on social media and put two sentences together. They need to schedule collabs and find collabs and act as a manager for themselves.
They come to the conference first and foremost for the sense of community, to know that they are not alone. There are a lot of people who want to see them succeed and will help them. A lot of these models live in more rural areas. They’re not all fortunate enough to be in Toronto, New York or Chicago, where you swing a cat and hit somebody you can collab with. Many of them don’t have people they would consider friends in the industry, and they certainly have never had the luxury of time to spend five days just hanging out with them.
What percentage of attendees would be gay guys or guys making gay content?
We try to be as inclusive as possible, because we do have women on our platform. We’ve reached out to them, but it’s hard to get them to attend. So I would say that 99 percent of attendees are gay men, either cis or trans.
What’s the wildest thing that’s happened at previous conferences?
My memory is awful, but I think there are models who met for the first time at the conference who are married now.
And sex in wild places?
It’s tightly controlled—we don’t want to get kicked out of our venues. But one of the cool things is that we provide locations that attendees would not normally have access to. They get footage in bathhouses and bars where typically you’re not allowed to film. Outdoor sex and public sex are two different ideas. Public sex, where people are walking by or someone is in the background when you’re exposing yourself, is illegal and terrible. We remove that from the site immediately. Filming outside by a pool is not the same. We provide a ton of outdoor filming possibilities in safe, non-public environments. I mean, the mountains in Palm Springs? What better backdrop could you ask for?
Do you have porn enthusiasts coming to town hoping to run into their favourite models?
Yes. And we have some security protocols around that, because that’s not always a good idea. During the conference, the hotel is locked down. Only models can enter the hotel. We have a whole security team for the events at the local bars that are public facing. So if the public wants to come in and meet the models, that’s the safe place for that to happen. Models know that. If that’s a scary idea for them, they don’t have to go. But that kind of fan interaction can be incredibly meaningful for models who do not live and breathe the award shows and that kind of stuff. For a model from a rural area, to go somewhere and be recognized on the street, it makes this guy’s day. I remember one who could not stop beaming about it because in his tiny hometown, nobody knows who he is. To watch this guy’s self-confidence blossom because of that was incredible.
What makes Palm Springs a good place to host the conference?
Palm Springs is a gay destination that’s very sex positive and very creator friendly. Plus there’s tons of space, lots of facilities for large groups of people to be doing things. The weather is good. I live in Florida, and there are spaces in Florida to do this, but Florida has horrific anti-trans laws on the books now, and until that changes, I can’t turn my back on the trans community and host it in Florida, as much as I would love to do it there some time.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
