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Some
big news
broke this morning when World
Hosting Days (WHD), a
giant in the global hosting
conference business, announced
they have acquired the world's
biggest domain conference, NamesCon,
for an undisclosed price. The news
came in a low key video featuring
WHD General Manager Soeren von
Varchmin that was posted on You
Tube (you can play that video
below).
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As of
this writing there has been no comment
on the sale from NamesCon Co-Founders Richard
Lau and Jothan Frakes who
launched the show in 2014. It has been
held every January since then, with
increasing attendance each year, at
the Tropicana Hotel in Las
Vegas where it will return for a
fourth run January 22-25, 2017
(this time under WHD ownership).
A
scene from the first business session
at the first NamesCon conference in
January 2014
World
Hosting Days draws thousands of
attendees to its biggest event - WHD
Global (next scheduled for Rust,
Germany March 27-31, 2017) and
also stages popular regional events
around the world including China,
Singapore, India, Moscow
and the USA, a market they just
entered two years ago with an event in
Pennsylvania.
WHD
GM Soeren von
Varchmin walks on stage to begin
the first WHD.USA conference
at the Seven Springs Mountain
Resort in western Pennsylvania
May 19, 2015.
The
second WHD.USA event was held in Phoenix,
Arizona in May 2016 and the
American show will return in September
2017 when it is scheduled to run
in Las Vegas - the same base as their
newly acquired NamesCon conference.
Domains, websites and hosting all go
hand in hand, making the marriage
of WHD and NamesCon a natural fit,
so the deal is not surprising from a
business standpoint. However, Richard
Lau, who was profiled in our December
2015 Cover
Story, told us he started
NamesCon primarily to raise money
for the Water
School and the show has
been very successful on that
front, raising hundreds of thousands
of dollars for the life saving
charitable organization. At this early
stage there has been no word on
whether WHD will continue the NamesCon/Water
School connection.
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