The Big Picture: New Photos and Positive Feedback for 2024 Domain Summit Has Founder Fired Up 

Last week the 2024 Domain Summit conference concluded its four-day run in London, England where the show at the Hilton London Metropole ran August 19-22. Now that conference Founder Helmuts Meskonis (seen in the photo at right) has had a few days to reflect on what was accomplished at this year's event and how the future is shaping up for Domain Summit, we got back together with him for an update. His thoughts on the conference are accompanied by some of the professional photos taken by Rina Rock for Domain Summit's photography sponsor, the .One Registry.  

With attendance up and positive feedback rolling in on social media, Helmuts was understandably excited to talk about it. "It was a great success!," he began. "We had a little over 250 attendees who came in from around the world and everything got off to a great start on day one  (Sunday, August 19) with a fantastic Team Internet offices tour for a selected number of attendees, hosted by Team Internet CEO Michael Riedl. That was followed in the evening with an awesome networking party generously hosted by it.com Domains on the top floor of the Hilton London Metropole."

Above: IT.com Domains Director of Global Business Development Rolandos Japertas (right) was on hand this immaculately dressed greeter to welcome attendees to the opening night Networking Party at Domain Summit.  Below: Guests wasted no time getting to know each other.

Above: IT.com Domains Business Manager Natalia Japerte obviously liked what the DJ was playing!

Below (clockwise from top left): Domain Summit Founder Helmuts Meskonis, Karsten Mangaard Heimbürger (Director of .One Registry), Sabina Jasinska (VP of Group Marketing, Team Internet) and attorney Karen Bernstein at thye opening night party.

Above: Coming together from opposite sides of the world, at left, Braden Pollock (USA) from LegalBrandMarketing.com with Munir Badr (UAE), Founder of AEServer.com and Domain Days Dubai.

Above: Heloise dos Santos (IT.com Domains Marketing Specialist and International Women's Alliance Brand Ambassdor) with Domain Summit moderator Tess Diaz (at left), welcomed guests (some seen below) to the company's Monday night party.

The next morning (Tuesday, August 20) it was time to get down to business with the opening round of business sessions and a technological update that Helmuts said was especially appreciated. "With generous support from super-simple crypto payments service Nicky.me and ShortDot Registry, this year we were able to upgrade the presentation screen to a wide LED wall," Meskonis said, "That made it much easier for attendee's to enjoy the speakers and dynamic presentations and what speakers we had! The Keynote was delivered by the CEO of Team Internet Michael Riedl and another welcome address was given by Nigel Hickson, the UK government's Senior Adviser or Data Protection, who is so loved and known in our industry.

The photo above from Team Internet CEO Michael Riedl's opening day Keynote also shows the razor sharp LED presentation screen that was a big hit with attendees. Between Michael and the upgraded technology, the audience (below) like what they were seeing.

Meskonis said the hits just kept on coming on opening day, noting some of the other highlights. "We had Christopher Mondini (ICANN's Vice President, Stakeholder Engagement, Europe and Managing Director for Europe), Werner Staub, one of the most intellectual industry leaders who is the CORE Association Chair, a session with two non-executive Nominet Directors Steve Wright and Kieren McCarthy and another with leading industry lawyers Karen Bernstein and Jim Davies."

ICANN's Chris Mondini giving some insight into plans for the next round of New gTLDs.

Everyone loves Ask Me Anything sessions and Domain Summit had a good one Tuesday 
afternoon with Tess Diaz hosting Shortdot CEO Lars Jensen for this AMA.

We barely scratched the surface of business day 1 and business day 2 Wednesday (August 21) was just as bountiful with more than 20 presentations and panel discussions held over the two days. Meskonis said the mobile ecosystem was was well represented with MEF, Aegis Mobile and Virgin Media O2 all having representative on hand, along with James Williams (MrConnectivity) for a Wednesday session on Business Messaging: Maximizing Loyalty and Profits.  Helmuts added, "In another day 2 highlight, "David Barnett (Stobbs), a brand protection professional with 20 years of experience, presented  scientific research related to domain names. We even got a fresh perspective of from 15-years young and bright Charlotte Riedl on the Generation Z view of domain names!"

Above: The mobile ecosystem was in the spotlight during this panel session Wednesday.

Below: 15-year-old Charlotte Riedl may be the youngest presenter at a major domain conference in industry history - and if you heard her, you know you will be hearing a lot more from her in the years ahead!

Speaking of hearing Charlotte, you might also be able to see her session soon, Helmuts said, "The live stream recordings will be published this week. Our videographer was sponsored by the amazing domain parking company BODIS that I personally use to park my domain names, and the domain names of my hosting company HostMaria.

We've now touched on some of the business sessions but the social activities are every bit as important to conference attendees. Helmuts said, "of course, we all love networking evenings and had those on Tuesday and Wednesday nights (August 20 and 21). They took place in a nearby newly renovated vegetarian restaurant, The Veg Box, that closed the whole place just for us. The success of these networking evenings was assured by a generous joint sponsorship from Munir Badir of AEserver.com and Ryan Ewen of DNWE.com. Thank you, gentlemen!" These events gave everyone time to talk about possible business deals or to make last-minute contacts with attendees they hadn't yet had a chance to talk with." Here are some scenes from the evening socials:

Those still in London Thursday morning (August 22) could carry on the networking even longer. Helmuts said. "Thursday started with a late breakfast sponsored by Titan Research and Richard Lau. After breakfast a group of the last pros standing (including Freddy from Namespace, Cosmin of Titan Research, ladies of .Sky Registry, Susan from D3, Jonathan of Siteplug and more) had a wonderful networking walk in the beautiful Hyde Park.

This year's Summit also included a couple of conferences that ran alongside the Domain Summit that Helmuts also wanted to highlight. "Just one floor above Domain Summit we had The International Women's Alliance (IWA) conference on August 20, then on the 21st, a Digital Assets Track devoted to Web3, crypto payments and various digital assets classes organized by Daniel Stanica of Monetize.info."

Above: IWA Founder Natalia Japerte welcomed attendees to the organization's first conference.

Below: A scene from the IWA convention that ran August 20 
on the floor above the Domain Summit.

Summing it all up, Helmuts said, "I was naturally worried that no-one would actually turn up, so seeing the full conference room preparing the 1st keynote speech by Michal Riedl and seeing people standing by the walls, and also knowing that there are people at the exhibition tables, I had to keep myself from bursting into tears of joy!" 

"We had so many amazing attendees like my friend Stefanus, the head of Domains of DreamHost, the German titan Martin of NicSell, Kalin of Seo.Domains and many many more - I just wish it was possible to mention then all! With honor and professional pride I can claim that Europe has it's own fabulous and super valuable Domain Summit with our own formula of kindness, respect, centered to business, and high-level attendees! In fact, I already have been approached by several industry leading companies on possible collaborations and/or sponsorships for next year, so expect the unexpected!!"

(Posted August 27, 2024)  

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