Moving to Austin was a smart move, and next year could be even better.
NamesCon Global 2020 is in the books. The conference took place last Wednesday through Saturday in Austin, Texas.
The move to Austin after many years in Las Vegas was a significant risk for NamesCon, but I believe it paid off. Overall, registrations were down about 75 compared to the year before, but that follows a trend in previous years, so the same attendance might have shown up had the event returned to Las Vegas.
I talked to a lot of people to get their opinions on the show. Here are some of their thoughts as well as mine.
Location: many were happy to have the event in Austin rather than Las Vegas. Not only is it a fun city, but the central U.S. location makes it just a few hour flight from most North American cities. Austin flies direct to 68 airports, but it certainly doesn’t have the international reach that Las Vegas has, so it was probably a bit more difficult for some people.
Hotel rooms: The Tropicana set a very low bar that the Omni easily topped. That said, the rooms were a bit dated. The good thing is that it’s centrally located, so people who want to upgrade have many options to choose from.
Conference venue: There were some good things and some things lacking in the Omni. The bar, expo ‘hall’ (if you can call it that) and Afilias lounge were downstairs. You took stairs up a flight to the session rooms.
- The sessions being on a different level than the exhibits wasn’t a big deal. It all flowed together nicely.
- It was nice having the bar as a central gathering point.
- The session rooms were much smaller than at the Tropicana, but it was is a good thing. There’s nothing worse than a 500-seat hall that’s barely full.
- I wish that the expo hall was more like the one in Las Vegas. It was a great gathering place with games, booths, and lounges; at the Omni, it was just a corridor of the lobby. That said, the Afilias Lounge at the conference was a great, quiet place to meet with people. Also, the exhibits probably should have opened on Wednesday rather than Thursday because the exhibit area was so integrated with the rest of the hotel.
- The way that everything flowed together had the drawback that it was difficult to police for people having badges. The bar/restaurant was a public area.
Sessions: In general, I liked NamesCon’s theme this year. I don’t usually attend many sessions but the ones I went to were good. I think NamesCon could have leveraged the Austin tech community more to bring in fresh speakers, though. If NamesCon is at the Omni again next year, I hope that Capital Factory, the incubator in the office side of the hotel, is integrated more. For example, startups could pitch their business and explain why they chose their names. It would also be helpful to get a few of the local VCs and branding firms to explain their thinking on company naming.
Social: There was plenty to do every night, but not much of it was official. This was fine for me but might be disappointing to people who aren’t as plugged into the community and don’t have organized events to attend.
Attendees: There were a lot of familiar faces this year. As with the sessions, I hope the organizers can pull more local tech and advertising businesses into the mix. Maybe get people from ad firms like GSD&M. There needs to be content to draw them in, and it might be wise to give them free event passes.
Fun Day: The Saturday fun day was great, especially because it was sunny and in the 70s. I wonder if it would make more sense to have this on Friday, though.
I’d love to hear more feedback from those who attended or people who attended in previous years and didn’t make the trip in 2020.
The auction was meh. They need to kill off that proxibid platform and run it on GD platform. GD needs to promote it to their audience as well as in tech/vc/angel/startup scenes prior to auction.
I thought the auction flowed much better than in previous years. They didn’t seem to have the tech issues that are common. Pacing was an issue, though. And I didn’t use proxibid so I can’t comment on that experience.
Endusers are typically not interested in bidding on random domains at auctions. It is always going to be to almost all domainers bidding on auctions. They are a way of getting liquidity, not high prices..
I thought it was great to not have to pass through a smoke filled casino. I hope it returns to Austin. If not Austin, Dallas would be my choice. If solves the International airport problem while retaining the central location.
Some people love Austin, but many others were disappointed by the city, including myself. Amazing barbecue and live music aren’t enough imo to make it a great destination for business and leisure.
Namescon was good as always, but I wouldn’t visit the city next time for a holiday or a trip. Personally I’d like to see the next Namescon in Florida or in California. After Austin, some people were traveling just to California to see it.
Perhaps the organizers will consider to make the event in different city every year like they do for Namescon in Europe – then everyone will have more chances to be satisfied at some point.
If it’s in Austin again next year, I’m happy to show you around and see some things you might have missed.
Auction was horrible, needs to be run on Godaddy, not proxibid, plus I have 0 integrity trust in the auction, seeing people bid 6 figures, and then fall back one big under reserve.
I don’t think GoDaddy Auctions has the capabilities for real time bidding like in the auction. It would have been a ton of work to upgrade the platform. What issues did you run into on Proxibid?
Personally I really like Austin. It’s way more compact than Vegas and, as you noted, there are plenty of other hotel options around the city.
It’s also got some really nice options for both food and bars.
Getting there from Europe isn’t particularly complicated.
Wherever they decide on for next year I just hope they don’t change the dates once they’ve announced them.
It was a bit strange that a lot of people arrived and were registered on Wednesday morning but the booths were still being set up – meaning it was half open. Perhaps have the Exhibition open from 9am Wednesday, wrapping up at lunchtime and then have an event.
Lunchtime on the Friday I mean…
Agreed that the city change was needed and it was a good choice. Compact, walkable, and solid food options. I wish the the fun day was on Friday though. Moving into the weekend isn’t great for some of us. Move everything a day forward and make Friday the fun day.
looks like austin and asheville will become hubs for domain conferences and meets…i love both cities (except winter in asheville and summer in austin)…i hate to drive icy roads and to experience extreme heat of summers in austin
funny in that both cities have as their tourist slogans: “Keep A— Weird!”
It will be better next year primarily because the new gtlds will all be gone by then. Finally, the worthless distractions will be gone and we can get on with serious domaining business.