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DNSeattle,
a new meetup for Seattle
area domain investors and entrepreneurs,
was held for the first time Thursday
night (January 30, 2014) with a
sellout crowd on hand for the first event
held in a meeting room atop Seattle's
iconic Space Needle. DNSeattle
was the brainchild of DomainSherpa's
Michael Cyger, who lives on Bainbridge
Island, directly across Puget Sound
from Seattle. Michael, who is a regular
attendee (and often a speaker or
moderator) at the major domain
conferences, T.R.A.F.F.I.C., Domainfest
and NamesCon, decided it was high
time that the tech mecca of Seattle join
places like Los Angeles and South Florida
that have active local domain meetups. Many
of the industry's leading companies are
based in or have offices in the Seattle
area and they quickly got behind the idea
through sponsorships or staff members
snapping up the 65 tickets available for
the debut event. Tickets (which cost just
$15) had to be limited to the amount of
space available atop the Needle. Though
the location may have capped ticket sales
the world famous symbol of Seattle was the
ideal spot for making a big splash
in DNSeattle's first time out of the gate. |
DNSeattle
Founder Michael Cyger
welcoming
attendees to the 1st meetup Jan.
30, 2014.
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A
view of the Seattle skyline snapped from the
Space Needle during the first DNSeattle meeting
Thursday night (Jan. 30, 2014). This photo, and
all of the others in this article, are copyright
and courtesy of Steve Stolee ([email protected]). 
Three
members of the DNSeattle organizing team make
sure all of the attendee names tags are ready
for pickup. They are Wendie McDonald (at
left) from BainbridgeIsland.com
(owned by Michael and Erin Cyger), Michael
Cyger (center) of DomainSherpa.com
and Erin Cyger of DomainSherpa.com and
BainbridgeIsland.com). 
As
soon as they had their nametags, attendees
grabbed a drink, filled their
plate from the well stocked buffet line and
began networking. 
DNSeattle
sponsors also made sure there was some cool swag
to take home including DomainTools.com
flasks, DomainSponsor
beanies and Estibot
gift certificates. Door prizes were also
given away and Kenneth Tomkins went home
with the Grand Prize - a brand new
iPad Air donated by Estibot.com's Luc
Lezon. 
Above
and below: Shots of the audience
on hand for the first DNSeattle meetup.
While most were from the Seattle area others
came from as far away as Toronto, Idaho, Los
Angeles and San Francisco. 
Some
of the familiar faces seated near the
front were (left to right at the lower left side
of the photo) Donuts Co-Founder Paul
Stahura, Jay Mohanraj (who flew in
from Edmonton) and Andrea Logan (who
drove up from Oregon) - and, in the lower right
side of the photo, Bart Stone, David
Schanen and Lisa Kandalaft. 
Luke
Webster of The Shave Network (delivering
his keynote speech. Webster runs
the VintageStraightRazor.com
website and is the owner of hundreds of other
razor domain names including StraightRazor.com
and StraightRazors.com. The audio from his talk
was recorded and will be rebroadcast on
DomainSherpa soon. 
(L
to R) Michael Cyger, DNSeattle
Co-Organizer Tamara Pawlak and Oversee.net
Senior VP Dwayne Walker who fielded
questions from the audience during his State
of the Industry update.
Michael Cyger
(whose DomainSherpa.com covered the events organization
and incidental costs) cited the generous
sponsorship of DomainSponsor
(lead sponsor) and Donuts
(supporting sponsor) for helping insure the
success of an event that is donating all
the money raised by individual attendees to
the Seattle-based Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
"Cancer is a terrible disease that touches
every family in America, and I was grateful that
we could come together as a community to support
research for a cure," Cyger said.
If you would like
to be notified of upcoming DNSeattle
events, you can sign up for the newsletter
at the bottom
of DNSeattle.com's home page. If you
need a little extra incentive to sign up, there's
a rumor that an Argosy
Cruise may be part of the next
DNSeattle event!
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