Final Countdown Underway for 2024 Domain Summit in London - Latest Details on Event Opening August 19

After two years under the London Domain Name Summit flag, the LDNS has been rebranded as the Domain Summit for this year's conference in London. The event will run August 19-21, 2024 at the Hilton London Metropole. After experiencing tremendous growth with his sophomore show in 2023, Domain Summit Founder Helmuts Meskonis and his team have spent the past year expanding the scope of the conference to fully represent the fact that people are now coming to it from multiple continents around the world.

It is unusual for a new event to attract so many international attendees at such an early stage of development but Meskonis has no doubt about what has generated so much interest in the show. "The basis for the success of the Domain Summit is being located in London, one of the world's greatest financial centers and the financial support of our sponsors, especially the it.com Domains. Without those two factors I wouldn't be able to gather so many amazing companies from the domain name industry."  

Meskonis noted, "Recent data indicates that the UK tech industry has reached a market value of $1 trillion, significantly surpassing its European counterparts, and London is now the top tech ecosystem outside of the US using a combination of factors including early, breakout and late stage funding, university talent, patents and unicorns with $1 billion plus exits. The UK is also the number one destination in Europe for investment by venture capital in the tech sector. UK start-ups and scale-ups raised £7.4 billion during the first six months of the year.

With that story to share, Helmuts has been tirelessly promoting the Domain Summit while attending ICANN meetings, regional ccTLD centered conferences and this year's Internet Commerce Association meeting Las Vegas. Helmuts said, "I think that the Domain Summit benefits the most from working in an established and money-rich economy. Also, there are

Helmuts Meskonis
Domain Summit Founder

almost no non-regional B2B events for our industry - there is only Domain Summit in London (covering mostly Europe), NamesCon (covering mostly the USA), Nordic Domain Days (also covering Europe) and Domain Days Dubai (for the middle-East region). The rest are regional meetings and ICANN events that are great but 9 out of 10 ICANN attendees don't talk business there."

Meskonis added, "Domain Summit also has a fantastic friend from the global telecoms world, James Williams, also known as Mr, Connectivity, who extended us a hand of friendship in the very beginning. Now we have an amazing events partnership with the Mobile Ecosystem Forum, who have invited some of their members, including Aegis Mobile, Virgin Media O2 and others to the Domain Summit."

Moving on to what attendees can expect at the 2024 Domain Summit, Meskonis said, "Our speakers, exhibitors and attendees are beyond amazing, and I could talk hours about most of them. Here are some of the many examples:

• Industry veteran and intellectual Werner Staub of CORE Association (created in 1997 as a Council of Registrars with the objective of providing new spaces to foster diversity and innovation on the Internet. It has since evolved into a not-for-profit international association based in Switzerland that provides domain name registry and registrar solutions).

•  InternetX (around 50% of all the .de domain name are registered through this powerhouse)

• A rock star entrepreneur of our industry Lars Jensen of ShortDot Registry (they own and manage 5 gTLDs)

Above: Team Internet CEO Michael Riedl and ShortDot Registry 
Founder Lars Jensen at the 2023 London conference.

• The keynote will be given by the Michael Riedl himself - the CEO of the publicly traded, profitable and fast growing Team Internet (formerly known as CentralNic)

• You will have chance to play chess with the IM Kalin Karakehayov of seo.domains (his companies own over 300,000 domain names)

• A person whom I consider a friend: the very successful and always happy Frederick (Freddy) Schiwek - who years ago raised a huge fund to buy out all the European ccTLD LLL domains, and who also recently sold his hosting companies to the super impressive World Hosting Group

• We have a team attending who are working on domain name intelligence software with a purpose to build up a 1 million domain name portfolio

• The super easy to use crypto payment gateway Nicky.me are sponsoring the LED screen for the Domain Summit

• A German super-domainer, Martin of NicSell who owns 280,000+ domains.

• Steven Wright and Kieren McCarthy, two great Non Executive Directors of Nominet

• .LV (Latvia) are sending their CTO Ivo Kutts and Systems Analytics pro Kristians Melins to widen their perspectives from conversations with the businesses of our industry

• Always amazing Munir Badr (UAE), Founder of aeServer.com and Domain Days Dubai

Above: AEServer.com & Domain Day Dubai Founder Munir Badr speaking last year in London.

• Unstoppable Ryan Ewen, who keeps acquiring domain name portfolios and marketplaces (owns 4 marketplaces)

• Always smiling and charming French professional Philippe Boos, the founder of Domgate (specializes in providing comprehensive domain management services, particularly focusing on ccTLDs)

• Great attendees from the United States (the biggest economy in the world): Stefanus Hadi, Ph.D. of DreamHost, Karen Bernstein, who is probably the number 1 female IP and domain name lawyer in the world, the super-successful Braden Pollock (I admire his business discipline and success), and Sedo's Mr. Premium Mark Ghoriafi

• Lithuania based world traveller Filip Borcov of Site.Pro is flying in from Bangladesh

• Both global leaders of their own niche "brand typo traffic" Dengi Media (UK) and SitePlug (India/USA) will be in London

• Always jolly and happy James Tuplin of Bodis (most don't know, that he also is a huge domainer owning a large and profitable traffic domain name portfolio)

• TLD registry representatives from .ONE, .SKY, .VOTE

• Great exhibitors including GoDaddy and EURid, the organization that runs .eu.

• The wonderful Tess Diaz will be our moderator and is always happy to help all positive and effective business owners with her experience and connections

Above: Tess Diaz (.it.com domains) will be back to moderate Domain Summit 2024

Helmuts also provided this broad overview of the Domain Summit 2024 agenda:

Monday, August 19:
Kick-off the event with an exclusive off-site tour to Team Internet offices (invitation only)
Networking drinks party hosted by it.com Domains. 

Tuesday, August 20:
Exhibition area opens (Admiral Suite, B-3)
Main Stage sessions (Admiral Suite, B-3)
International Women's Association Convention (GMT Suite. B-2), co-organized by Natalia Japerte of it.com Domains
Networking evening at The Veg Box Cafe 
 
Wednesday, August 21:
Exhibition area (Admiral Suite, B-3)
Main Stage sessions (Admiral Suite, B-3)
Digital Assets Track (GMT Suite. B-2), co-organized with Daniel Stanica of Monetize.info community
Networking evening at The Veg Box Cafe  

Thursday, August 22: a delightful way to end the Summit and create lasting connections:
Optional Farewell Gathering. Enjoy a late breakfast with fellow attendees
Walk in the beautiful Hyde Park (weather permitting). 

Meskonis added, "There are various sponsorships available, and full tickets are available for £450 ($575), and Free 1-Day Session Passes are available at Eventbrite (created for industry companies up-to 5 employees): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/967626305327 and https://www.eventbrite.com/e/967638692377  

Summing it all up, Helmuts said, "The opportunities for a business from our industry are as great as you will ever get. No policy, no tourists - strictly good business talks!"

(Posted August 7, 2024)  

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