The news from Los Angeles at the end of 2008 was that Kink promoter Robert Fluty had dropped the Ball — but only from the title of his three-day event in February.

It is now called the LA Kink Fetish Weekend, a name change that reflects Fluty’s consolidation of his Kink Events brand.

KinkEvents.com now embraces LA’s Fetish Weekend, Masque fetish dinner-cabarets and Passive-Aggressive play parties, plus November’s Kink In The Caribbean vacation week and Kink-Lite, a brand new Jamaican jaunt at Hedonism II scheduled for this coming May.

Some five weeks before the LA Kink, which takes place as before on President’s Day weekend, February 13-15 (coinciding neatly with Valentine’s day this year), details of its parties are still a bit thin on the ground.

We know that Saturday 14’s main event will be the “erotic exotic toxic” Valentines Ball (subtitled My Bleeding Heart) at a “spectacular” location as yet to be announced.

We also know that as per last year, Sunday’s event will be a special Fetish Weekend edition of Masque, which has now built a strong following thanks to the combination of a decent venue and some really interesting acts. This year’s venue is still to be announced, though if it follows tradition it will be at the El Cid Dinner Theater.

Bordello in downtown LA was a very successful choice for Friday’s opening party last year, and its proximity to Robert Fluty’s studio made the after-party arrangements a no-brainer. In past years there’ve been after-parties each night, so expect something similar for 2009.

The Bordello party, Fade To Black, was basically a meet ’n’ greet, but featured some performances (see link on left to our report). We think last year’s attendees would be very happy to see 2009’s opening party at the same venue.

As regards performers and shows, those of the two previous years have certainly lived up to this Los Angeles weekend’s ambitions to be a world class fetish event.

Robert Fluty has a reputation for securing the kind of fetish superstars that will pull in a crowd — such as RubberDoll last year and Gen of Genitorturers the year before. But he’s also known for signing up interesting and unusual acts that don’t necessarily promote themselves as fetish but go down well with a fetish audience.

Last year some of his more creative choices really paid off. Using Prince Poppycock as MC for Friday and Sunday, and staging Diffidence, an original piece by choreographer Elayssa and her dancers, at the main Fetish Asylum party on Saturday and again at the Masque dinner on Sunday, were both inspired decisions.

The Fetishistas officially launched at the first LA Weekend in February 2007, so we readily own up to having an emotional connection to this West Coast event. Its arrival confirmed our belief that the Los Angeles fetish scene had finally reached the ‘critical mass’ necessary to support an international weekend like those in Europe.

LA is bursting with talented fetish creatives, with some of the best known photographers, artists and models based there and a small but growing roster of respected latex designers too.

And as a destination for a winter getaway, even though you can’t expect summer temperatures, the weather generally beats what Europe has to offer. There’s masses of stuff to see and do, including, if you hang around after the Fetish Weekend, getting a first hand view of the city’s preparations for and celebrations around Oscars Weekend.

This year’s official hotel for the fetish weekend is the LA City Center Holiday Inn, located at 1020 South Figueroa Street in the downtown entertainment area opposite the Staples Center, LA Convention Center, Nokia Center and other attractions. Rooms start at $160 plus tax per night, if you book before January 30 and quote group code ‘KIN’.

But to give you a better idea of what the fetish side of your LA trip would be like this year, this article includes two galleries from last year’s main Fetish Asylum party at Key Club. These pictures, mostly published for the first time here, showcase both the stage performances and the audience in all their fetish finery.

Mistress of Ceremonies RubberDoll was joined by Swiss-based electro-pop act FAQ for the first US performance of the FAQ vs RubberDoll project. Fetish/bondage model Eden Wells performed inside a transparent 7ft plastic ball, and as mentioned previously, Elayssa and her dancers gave the first of two Diffidence performances.

Last on the bill was legendary suspension artist Allen Falkner, whose return to LA after performing at the previous year’s Ball was treated as a very special occasion, as it was to be in all likelihood his final US appearance.

Click on the links in our left hand column for the latest LA Kink 2009 info in our News Section, and to see more pictures or read more stories from earlier LA weekends.