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It was
the right decision. The pandemic delivered an
important life lesson - never take the time
you have with people you care about lightly. The opportunity
could disappear forever overnight. Being able
to see everyone in person again has already made
this the most appreciated conference I've
ever attended. The first three days have been a pure
delight on every level and we still have one more to
go today - a Fun Day that will close the
show.
On
this beautiful Saturday morning in Austin I
finally had enough time to sift through the hundreds
of photos I've taken and pull out a few
highlights to share with you. Once we get home the
real work will begin on a new Cover Story that will
cover the complete conference from start to
finish (expect to see that by Tuesday evening,
Sept. 6).
Above:
There was a full house when the 2022
NamesCon Global conference opened Wednesday
morning (August 31) at the Omni Hotel in
downtown Austin, Texas.
Below:
When Soeren von Varchmin, the Chairman of the
NamesCon Advisory Board, hit the stage at 10am to
open the show, the level of excitement (clearly
reflected in Soeren's face) was off the chart.
A wait over more than two and a half years to see
each other face to face was finally over!
Above:
After Soeren had called me (at left) onstage to talk
about what has been happening in the domain world
since we last met, I was surprised to see
NamesCon CEO Christian Jaeger walk in with a
birthday cake. I had spent my birthday Tuesday
flying to Austin, seeing other early arrivers in the
hotel lobby and attending Sedo's pre-show
party (there could not have been a better way to
spend a birthday)! This thoughtful gesture from
Christian, Soeren and Helga Neumer (Head of
NamesCon Operations) is something I will always
treasure. We also celebrated landmark dates for two
of the industry's leading companies - NamesCon
coincided with the 25th Anniversary of Trellian
(whose Above.com
unit was NamesCon's title sponsor) as well as the
the 10th Anniversary of Radix.
Below:
Now it was time to get down to business! Paul
Nicks, the President of GoDaddy's Domain
Registrars and Investors division, delivered the
first keynote - titled Igniting Investor
Success. Paul has always been an advocate
for domain investors as he has risen through the
ranks at GoDaddy. We would not be getting the
attention and continually expanding
investor-oriented services from GoDaddy we have seen
in recent years were it not for Paul.
Above:
I was back on stage for two other sessions in the Bodis
Keynote Hall on opening day Wednesday. The first
was a morning Fireside Chat with Artist
Christian Calvin (that we will dig into in
the upcoming Cover Story on NamesCon Global 2022)
and the second in the afternoon (seen here), Insights
Into the Domain Industry's Evolution, with Trellian
President and Co-Founder David Warmuz
(right). As I mentioned above, Trellian is
celebrating this 25th Anniversary and David has been
there to see and help build this industry from its
beginning. He had some great stories to share,
including a fascinating account of his 22-year-long
efforts to acquire the domain Trillion.com. The
original plan was to use Trillion as the company
name. David did finally get it but by that point
Trellian was the established brand. Still, check out
Trillion.com
to see how many well-known brands the company owns
and operates now. I think you will be surprised!
Below:
In another highly anticipated session that drew a
wall to wall crowd, two of the best negotiators in
the business, Kate Buckley (Buckley Media)
and the Domain King himself, Rick Schwartz,
shared their views on the The Art of
Negotiating. Kate and Rick have very
different negotiating styles, yet they both
consistently ring up huge sales. Insight into the
way they go about it made this session alone worth
the cost to attend NamesCon.
Above:
Throughout the opening days of the conference, the Exhibit
Hall area was a bee hive of activity. It was
conveniently located on level 1 of the Omni's
beautiful atrium. There was a steady flow of
attendees up and down the staircase at right that
leads to the Bodis Keynote Hall, the TITAN
Breakout Stage and other meeting rooms.
Below:
Of course, one thing attendees especially love about
the Exhibition Hall is the chance to pick up some cool
swag! Here a visitor checks out the .HipHop
booth where a huge pile of T-Shirts was steadily
whittled down as the show progressed (as a former
radio DJ and owner of several record stores in a
previous business life, I had to pick up one of
those myself)!
Above:
At the end of the first business day it was time for
the Above.com Opening Night Reception at the
Omni. NamesCon Global attendees came from all
over the world. Those as the Above party included
industry veteran (L to R) Aishwin Vikhona and
Prakhar Bindal (both from India) and Truc
Tran (from Norway).
Below:
Unfortunately, there was one tragic event at the
Above.com party - the premature death of an 18-year-old
bottle of Macallan Scotch! This particular
star-crossed bottle was won by Marc Mojica from
Sniamod LLC (at left below with Above.com
Executive Vice President Nancy Bianchi) as
part of a day-long Above.com Scavenger Hunt
contest. Right after Marc won the bottle, another
attendee picked it up and accidentally dropped the
bottle, shattering it and sending the sweet smell of
Scotch through the room - at least one attendee even
dipped a napkin into the pool of liquid to sniff it!
Macallan 18 typically retails for $400-$500 but to
show how guests at NamesCon this year would not let anything
dampen their spirits, Marc was still smiling
when he told us about the mishap. As he noted, he
now has a great story to tell even if it leaves a
big hole in his liquor cabinet! (One way or another,
odds are that problem will be fixed too).
Above:
Evening social events are always a big part of the
NamesCon experience, typically with multiple events,
private and public, every evening. We were honored
to join some longtime friends of industry legend
Frank Schilling (at left above with dinner host Dr.
Gregg McNair (center) and Frank's closest
friend, Vern Jurovich) at Eberly in Austin
Wednesday night to celebrate Frank's success and
thank him for the inspiration and encouragement he
has provided so many of us along the way. After the
private dinner, a party open to all NamesCon
attendees got underway at Eberly and ran well
into the night.
Below:
The second day of business Thursday, September 1,
got off to s great start with iconic broker Andrew
Miller (Managing Director at Hilco
Digital Assets) sharing The Secret to
Premium Domain Deals. Andrew has been in the
middle of many of the biggest domain sales of all
time. You don't hear the specifics about most of the
them because sales at this level almost always come
with non-disclosure agreements, but industry
veterans are well aware of what Andrew has accomplished
over the past two decades. In this session he shared
how sales at this level get done and this was
another one of those sessions where you needed to
get there early or you weren't going to find an open
seat!
Above:
Another day two highlight Thursday was the RightOfTheDot
NamesCon Global Live Domain and Digital Assets
auction. As always, the sale was orchestrated b
World Champion Auctioneer Wayne Wheat (left
on stage) and ROTD President Monte Cahn. At
this writing we don't have all of the auction
results in (and the offline auction is still going
on) but we should have more on that in our upcoming
Cover Story).
Below:
After another full day of business, another round of
social events followed Thursday, including the
annual Internet
Commerce Association Dinner, held at Parkside,
just a couple of blocks from the Omni. A highlight
of the dinner is always the presentation of the
annual Lonnie Borck Memorial Award and that
was again the case this year. The award, recognizing
a person who has done outstanding work in
helping foster
a sense of community within the domain name
industry went to Andrew Allemann of Domain
Name Wire. ICA Executive Director Kamila
Sekiewicz presented Andrew with the
well-deserved award.
There
was another full round of business sessions Friday,
including some big news from Soeren von Varchmin
in his daily kickoff session. He confirmed that NamesCon
Global will return to Austin in 2023. The
dates are still to be determined but Soeren said
they would fall in either the spring or fall
seasons.
Now,
it is time for me to run again - it's off to Banger's
Sausage House and Beer Garden for the closing Fun
Day at NamesCon Global 2022. I'll likely
have some photos from that for you by Sunday night -
and again - today's column was just a sampling to
give you some of the flavor of the show - the big
wrap is still to come early next week!
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