Thanks to all the members who attended our 2026 annual meeting for making it such a special event! It was great to see everyone in Las Vegas this January, and the energy throughout the week really highlighted what makes this community unique.
Held January 15–17 at Park MGM, the meeting benefited from a smaller, more integrated venue. The layout made it much easier to find one another between sessions, leading to the kind of spontaneous “hallway” conversations and informal networking that our members value most.
Getting Started
While the formal schedule began on Thursday, the week really started Wednesday evening with a kickoff party at Alebrijes (formerly Crash n’ Burn, though many of us call it Monte’s!). It was a fun way to meet up with everyone before the busy days ahead over drinks and food!
On Thursday, we opened with a Next Gen session and speed networking followed by a UDRP legal panel. From there, members headed out for Activity Day, with groups spread across Las Vegas for everything from a trip to the Hoover Dam, to horseback riding and Topgolf to a visit to the Atomic Museum and of course the pickleball tournament. We hope these activities gave everyone a chance to relax and connect with fellow attendees in a more casual setting, and judging from the feedback and fun pictures we’ve seen, it worked!
Thursday evening’s Opening Night Gala, sponsored by GoDaddy, featured our annual awards and magic from Chad Chesmark. This year’s Lonnie Borck Memorial Award was presented to Elliot Silver. As a close friend of Lonnie’s, it was incredibly moving to have Elliot receive the honor, and the ceremony was made even more special by the presence of Lonnie’s widow, Ronit, who presented the award. The Trailblazer Award was awarded to Richard Kirkendall of Namecheap/Spaceship, and was accepted on his behalf by his friend and former business partner, Richard Lau. The highlight of the night was undoubtedly the live roastee reveal (thank you, Braden!) and Todd Ryan joining the lineup for a roast that will definitely be remembered for a long time!
Member-Led Insights and Advocacy
On Friday morning, the Atom.com Stage hosted several ICA-focused sessions, including a “Meet the Board” segment, a policy update from Zak Muscovitch, and a Town Hall. During the Town Hall, we discussed the ICA’s scope and future direction, our financial health and resourcing, and possible new member benefits, such as health insurance and succession planning support. We also covered our advocacy work at ICANN and WIPO, and explored ways that members and industry partners can get more involved.
The afternoon featured our traditional Guru Tables, followed by an AMA with GoDaddy’s Alan Shiflett in his new role, and a panel on understanding ICANN.
Friday evening was a “free night,” but many opted for the group outing to see the Cirque du Soleil performance of Awakening. It was great to have 45 members join us for the show and about the same number joined the Identity Digital .poker tournament at MGM Grand later that night!
Saturday was an experimental day for us. Based on past feedback, we wanted to add more content and create focused, peer-to-peer exchanges on various facets of the domain name industry. This included a negotiations panel, a look at the future of monetization, and the impact of AI. Our goal was to provide a space where industry leaders could talk candidly about the current landscape and attendees could ask direct questions. The experiment was a success. The panels were well attended and the quality of the presentations and the information shared were top-notch.
Throughout the meeting, members made great use of the DomainNames.com Lounge for meetings, networking, and our Guru Tables. Jeff Brooks also took over 50 professional headshots in the lounge (sponsored by Unstoppable Domains). Thank you, Jeff!
Finally, a big thank you to Dynadot for keeping everyone caffeinated with the coffee break sponsorship on both days!
With Gratitude to Our Sponsors
ICA Vegas 2026 would not have been possible without the generous support of our partners:
- GoDaddy: Our Opening Night Gala and DomainNames.com Lounge sponsor
- Unstoppable Domains: For the kickoff party and professional headshots by Jeff Brooks
- Atom.com: For sponsoring the Kensington main stage, the heart of our core programming
- Dynadot: For sponsoring our coffee breaks
- it.com: For our visible branding on lanyards and co-sponsoring the pickleball success
- Domain Agents: For sponsoring our Broker Breakfast
- Identity Digital: For sponsoring the late-night .poker tournament
- Media Options & Domain Sherpa: For on-site staffing and operational support
- DNX, Grit Brokerage, Ammar Kubba: For making the Kubba Kup one of the hightails of the meeting
- Dot Hip-Hop and D3: For their continued support!
Thank you!
A special thank you to the ICA Board and Meeting Committee. Your months of planning were visible in every detail of this event!
To everyone who joined us, thank you for your energy and your commitment to the ICA. And to everyone who helped make the meeting possible in any way, we’re deeply grateful. We look forward to building on this momentum throughout 2026!
Meeting Coverage
If you’d like to read more about the meeting, we encourage you to check out these great recaps from ICA members who joined us in Vegas. Thank you all for taking the time to share your experiences and highlights at the meeting!
Ron Jackson from DNJournal
Andrew Allemann from Domain Name Wire
Elliot Siver and Domain Investing