Many domain investors are eager to participate in domain conferences, such as TRAFFIC and DomainFest Global (now dormant, after renamed to Webfest global).
The opportunities that arise from such meetings of domainer professionals are numerous and self-explanatory: you get to meet those that otherwise remain hidden in the realm of uber-fame, or are physically remote to interact with.
Domain conferences come at a price, however: there are flight or transportation costs to consider, hotel rooms to book and then there is the conference ticket itself.
In the recent past, DomainFest introduced single-day meet-ups at a reduced price, in large cities such as New York. To many, that option offered the best benefits: small cost, accessibility to large metropolitan areas and the single day access eliminated the need to book lodging.
Unfortunately, DomainFest did not continue these “power networking” events for domainers; had it scaled up the effort to other cities, it might have been the current paradigm of how domainer conferences should be like.
Whether you like it or not, TRAFFIC is still the measuring tape that determines how other, smaller domainer events are judged by. In its 25th re-incarnation, TRAFFIC attracts the majority of the big players and a good number of “regular” domainers, that seek opportunities to network.
In the future, particularly with the introduction of gTLDs and the global expansion of ICANN with regional offices, we are going to see more domain conferences pop up, especially by professional event organizers that have been doing similar conventions at a large scale in other industries.
