The first WorldHostingDays conference ever held in America - WHD.usa - got underway Tuesday (May 19, 2015) at the beautiful Seven Springs Mountain Resort in western Pennsylvania. Here are photos and highlights from a very busy opening day and night at the two-day event that will conclude tonight.

Above WHD.usa Hosts Emily Parker and Soeren von Varchmin opened the show with 
welcoming comments Tuesday morning at the Seven Springs Mountain Resort.

Below: The highlight of the morning sessions was a live interview (via Skype) with 
Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales conducted by Ms. Parker (the author of the book 
Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices From the Internet Underground). 

Exhibitors in the WHD.usa Exhibition Hall came up with some unique ways to attract attendees to their booths. During the morning coffee break I stopped by the InterNetX booth (above) to try my hand in their Server Lifting Challenge (below). While being timed you had to hold a server in the air as long as possible. My time was less than stellar but everyone who accepted the challenge won as they were given nice InterNetX gift bags.

After several more morning business sessions in the Grand Balroom, WHD.usa invited guests to take part in a variety of leisure activities available during  the two-hour lunch break - a perfect opportunity to explore the lush surroundings at Seven Springs and have some while you were at it. Above is a view of one of the mountainsides that features an undulating 2,000 foot alpine slide. Below, DomainNameWire's Andrew Allemann raises a fist in the air after a exhilarating ride from top to bottom.

Other lunch-time activities included chairlift rides up the mountain (above) and Segway rides at the Adventure Center. For those who like indoor sports better, the resort's own bowling lanes were open to all.

Above: Right after lunch ICANN VP for Stakeholder Engagement, Christopher Mondini, was featured in a wide ranging interview conduced by Emily Parker.

Below: A WHD.usa panel discussion devoted entirely to the latest developments in the domain name business followed Mr. Mondini's talk. From left to right are Alexander Siffrin (CEO, Key-Systems), Ken Hansen (CEO, .CO.COM), Jeff Sass (CMO, .CLUB), Brad Lemire (VP, Business Development for North America, at Sedo) and moderator Monte Cahn (RightOfTheDot.com)

Above: Some of the day's final business sessions were held in a breakout room - the Snowflake Forum - that is set up like a college classroom. This session featured InterNetX Global Sales Manager Helena Schindler. InterNeX is a major power in both the domain and hosting worlds.

Below: With business out of the way it was time for the big evening social event, Weebly.com's ConneXion Party held at the Foggy Goggle night club. It started with a great buffet dinner, drinks and networking as dusk was falling on a pleasant evening in the western Pennsylvania mountains.

Above (left to right): Chris Sheridan (Business Development star at Weebly.com, the party hosts who made it a great evening with good food, drinks and live entertainment), David Woroch, Jeff Sass (.CLUB) and Christine Hoh (Sr. Account Executive at MailChannels). 

Below: There was some great entertainment inside of the Weebly.com Stage. They brought in the lovely and talented Joseph Sisters (below) as well as bonafide hitmakers Snap!, who stormed the charts in 1990 with "The Power" (which went to #2 in the U.S.).

As I write this day two is underway at WHD.usa. I will have photos and highlights from the closing day of the big event for you in my next post from Pennsylvania.