Update on Summit

[Helmuts]

Thanks @Edwin for chipping in and explaining the situation more eloquently than I ever could (see the number of likes on your post).

Over the 2-3 days in London this year you could actually see the difference between long time .uk domain investor and international .com investors. Or if you like the multi millionaire movers and shakers (Yue Dai or Braden Pollock) which seems to be the perceived definition of success here?

I guess the trick is to try and cater for everyone over the two days:

Day 1 - Have an after party with a free bar in Room 23 where it’s even open to Acorn members that didn’t go to the conference during the day. You could even have a live auction at about 5pm that day to encourage people to turn up.

Day 2 - On the second day you have an exclusive dinner for your top paying sponsors and invited international guests. Have your awards and photos opportunities then.

That way no one is left out and there is something for everyone. Just a thought.

Thank you, Andrew.

Next year, there is a scheduled Awards/Gala event scheduled for the first day, which falls on August 20th. Location undecided yet (the funding will be a major factor here). Events pros of this level (whom I am consulting with) are all unanimous - we have to do the most important part (such as gala/awards) in the evening of day 1.

The exclusive dinner is planned on the day 3 (August 22nd). Currently the plan is to have it on one of the City Cruises ships, exclusively secured for us (planning phase - lots of unknow chess pieces here).

The evening of day 2: networking drinks and party.

 

[deleted7/10/23]

I agree with others, August isn't the right time for this. Even NamesCon moved from August 2022 to June this year (and next year)

NC traditionally was at the start of the year, when hotels, travel etc were considerably cheaper and didn't clash with other events

It moved to summer(ish) as part of the shift away from Vegas and the (hopefuly temporary) merging with NC-Europe
After last year they acknowledged summer period was a bad time to hold it - it'll probably stay Q2 or maybe go back to Q1 (which the bulk of the paying attendees preferred) so as not to be too close to CF in Rust

The huge increase in numbers this years was due to handing out free tickets for 'cloudfest usa' - signficantly more than half the attendees didn't pay the (from) $399 for a ticket - the event lasted 5 days in total (albeit the Sat was social and pre-arranged meetups) - this also let there be a few more 'domain adjacent' sponsors rather than just registries/parkers/reseller-systems and godaddy.

attending local events are always cheaper than going abroad

You obviously don' go to UK events much then I can go to More4 in AMS cheaper than something at the NEC !

Not even ICANN with its global reach and unlimited resources (paying constituency travel expenses and fellowships) can get 1500 people to attend their free events in the domain industry

The "heavier" more focussed content tends to make it more of a trade thing than a b2b/bsc type show though.

NC-Europe managed about 400 attendees, *very* 2ndary domain focussed and was cheaper than the proposed next-year-summit pricing.

but a total of 36 paid (£50) tickets.

I was unaware there even was a paid option - when I booked my ticket that didnt show to me.

After all, UK has the 6th largest economy (GDP) in the world.

However it's tiny (in both population and domaining position).

The value is provided by the exhibitors/schedule

For me the schedule is the real "pulling" force of a B2B event - most of the exhibitors have their own or I see at other events anyway - IT.com have been everywhere the last few years, OX I see all the time, C/NIC, Sedo etc are already suppliers ...

You could even have a live auction at about 5pm that day to encourage people to turn up

I said the same thing at the summit - what it was missing was a sale (poss supporting some charities) of domains.

More talks (slightly shorter) with more of a "training" focus would be my suggestion to draw more people - so they get "ongoing value" from attending.

 

[Helmuts]

Thank you @othellotech