So I was talking with another domainer yesterday about acquisitions and aftermarket prices. He shifted the conversation with the following statement, “Boy guess I have attended my last Namescon.” I asked him forever? He said yes and that his wife drove home the point by telling him if he ever thought about attending a large conference he would be hit with divorce papers.
The live events landscape has been changed forever. Of course no one is holding conferences during the pandemic. But what about when the world moves to a time that is deemed, “after covid”?
In the tech industry a lot of companies and event organizers are looking at virtual conference far into the future. Some companies have exited the business forever.
NiemanLab referenced O’Reilly Media who is getting out of the business entirely.
Laura Baldwin writes on Twitter
The virus has had a material impact on O’Reilly’s in-person Events division as well. We previously made the painful decision to cancel our Strata California and Strata London events. Today, we’re sharing the news that we’ve made the very difficult decision to cancel all future O’Reilly in-person conferences and close down this portion of our business.
The author Joshua Benton wrote, “In other words, they’re not postponing events or canceling a few conferences — they’re getting out of the in-person events business altogether. Because they believe the “new normal” for meetings and conferences post-COVID-19 will be a business they’re not interested in being in.”
Craig Roth at Gartner wrote an excellent piece on how to think about holding a virtual conference.
With Conferences Falling to Coronavirus, It’s Time to Rethink the Virtual Conference
Now all shows will certainly try not to be virtual forever. Jon Swartz over at MarketWatch wrote an article a few weeks back and highlighted some opinions.
Major events like the Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress, CES in Las Vegas, San Francisco’s RSA and SXSW in Austin, Texas, each gather tens of thousands of people and companies, many of them startups and small businesses, that “all depend on networking and the ability to form partnerships with vendors and suppliers,” Beth Kindig, an independent tech analyst in San Francisco, told MarketWatch in a phone interview. “I can’t see them being online-only in the future. Maybe some of the smaller shows, but it depends on how these virtual events go.”
Another strategy might be to employ smaller local events. Could NamesCon for example put on a series of smaller events where people did not have to travel as far as they would for one big show.
So has the pandemic forever changed your desire to attend a conference or will you be back to attending once it is deemed safe?
I understand our precautions now of not attending in person conferences or other events for the moment (not forever). People didn’t stop doing stuff in person after the Spanish Flu of 1918 which had an extremely higher fatality rate than the current Pandemic we are facing. I mean they temporarily quarantined like we’re doing now, but eventually in person meetings became a thing again. Although it is nice we have the option to go to and attend virtual conferences (even through the options have been available for years) with the convenience the internet has brought, it doesn’t mean that all conferences or life have to be online for everything from this day forward. As someone who really enjoys the internet and helping develop the world wide web, it seems a balance of some conferences online and some in person will probably be the end result. That is just analyzing the current scenario from my perspective.
BIO International (Conference on Biotechnology Industry) will be help online June 8 to 12 this year 2020. That will start a trend.
We are 2 weeks away for Grand Opening Announcement
Pre-Announcement Free Tickets Available now
Page Howe’s TheDomainShow.com
We think we can reach and be see by a larger, more global market in one show. I have been talking to speakers since before Namescon, should have a nice group announced May 1.
Online, we can link the the Powerpoints for later review and get to the meat of issues around
owning and managing domain names, how to buy a domain name for companies and businessowners,
tricks and tips for domain investors, and some hard learned advice.
Plus we will open up attendees to many under-the-radar companies who havent been at shows with innovative and new products.
Come on down.
TheDomainShow.com
Oh yeah dates are June 11-13 3 days 30 sessions, 50 speakers plus games, contests and live afterglow.
Virtual is the way to go anyone who doesn’t get it is pretty naive or stupid.
Good luck Page, I would certainly never attend another live conference.
hmm, im not ready to go that far. ill be at Namescon if theres one in 2021
page
Namescon Sucks anyway, save your money.
Every travel will be closed boarders.
If someone from other countries want to visit USA, they have to be inoculated right at the airport and have to stay in the hotel for 15days quarantine.
Best of all, the travelers have to pay for all these costs.
There will be an app or a medical certificate that all of us have to carry now showing you are NEGATIVE…and this is your golden passport to travel, for jobs, for social /sport events…NO EXCEPTIONS.
Welcome to the brave new world!!
For 2021 certainly, but domainers have never been a bright bunch so maybe they will gather in the first winter past the pandemic. Hopefully godaddy smart enough to not have a live conference the first winter after all this.
I wouldn’t let you pay me to go to namescon in 2021, pay for it, fuck that!!!
Everybody attending conferences now will have to wear a human condom over their clothes….it is a new fashion!!
Virtual is better than real event 🙂
You can just see people talking out there they don’t want to go to events polls in the high 70% range the people don’t wanna show up to things with other people at least until they’ve gotten the vaccine. so there’s not gonna be a namecon live 2021 at the normal time that it happens, unless it’s a money grab by Go Daddy and people are just jackasses.