The 2013 T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East conference officially got underway Sunday (Oct. 20) at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Florida's Fort Lauderdale Beach. Registration opened at 12 Noon and 30 minutes later champagne and mimosas were flowing at the opening day Cabana Party on the Ritz Carlton's pool deck. 

Frank Schilling (InternetTraffic.com) and Ammar Kubba (ThoughtConvergence.com) 
at Sunday's poolside Cabana Party that kicked off the 2013 T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference.

Above: T.R.A.F.F.I.C. attendees visiting the Above.com cabana Sunday.

Below: Truc Tran (domain investor from Oslo, Norway) with 
Above.com's Nancy Bianchi Sunday at the Above.com cabana.

At 4:30pm T.R.A.F.F.I.C. held their traditional orientation session for first time conference attendees. Show organzers told us nearly a third of this year's T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East registrants have never been to a domain conference before. That is a good sign of growig interest in the industry.

At 5:30pm it was time for T.R.A.F.F.I.C's traditional  Opening Night Cocktail Party held on the 4th floor of the Ritz where guests enjoyed a birds eye view of the Atlantic Ocean through the floor to ceiling windows. 

Among those at T.R.A.F.F.I.C.'s Opening Nght Cocktail Party were (left to right) Steve Kaziyev, Jason Schaeffer, Dan Adamson, Cate Colgan, Russ Goodwin, Dave Evanson and T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Co-Founder Howard Neu.

A hghlight of the cocktail party for a lot of us was seeing veteran domain investor Roy Flanders walk into the room. Roy, who lives on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts, has been battling some major health issues over the past year or two and travel is not easy for him so we weren't expecting him to make the trip. Roy said he decided to do it at the last minute and we are certainly glad he did. I'm hopeful his return to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. will be as therapeutic and uplifting to him as seeing him was for us.  

Roy Flanders (right) with Ari Goldberger Sunday night 
at T.R.A.F.F.I.C.'s Opening Night Cocktail Party.

After the cocktail party a large group of attendees who do business with Frank Schilling's companies - InternetTraffic.com and DomainNameSales.com - boarded buses for a short trip up N. Ft. Lauderdale Beach Boulevard to the S3 Restaurant where Frank hosted a dinner party for his many clients and friends.

Above: Frank Schilling, standing at far left, addressing his guests at the S3 Restaurant Sunday night on Fort Lauderdale Beach. With over 90 guests on hand Frank had to gve his welcome message twice to cover the two rooms needed to seat everyone (the shot above covers ony about a quarter of the crowd in one room)..

Frank Schilling (left) and T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Co-Founder Rick Schwartz took the opportunity to promote their .Coms vs. New gTLDs Battle Royal that was the highlight of Monday's agenda at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. (as expected it turned out to be one of the most entertaining and informative conference sessions of the past decade - more on that in tomorrow's post as sessions I need to cover are are still going on as I write this). 

Above: Rick Schwartz throws a "haymaker" at Frank Schilling Sunday night - a prevew of what he said was to come during their debate today.

Below: Afer their "fisticuffs" Frank and Rick, who are longtime friends despite their differing views on new gTLDs, kissed and made up (well...at leas they made up, I'm still trying to get them to kiss as that would be the picture of the year). 

Below: At the end of the night, a group of the last Schilling dinner guests to leave posed for the group photo below (Frank is third from the left in the front row with Ammar Kubba sitting on his lap (don't ask!). By the way, domain industry veteran Monte Cahn, at far right in the front row, is also an investor in the popular S3 Restaurant that hosted the event.

As I noted earlier the Monday's first full day of business at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. is still underway as I write this. I'll have all of the Monday photos and highlights from T.R.A.F.F.I.C. in my next post from Fort Lauderdale Beach tomorrow.