Attendees of 51st ICANN meeting that will take place in LA in October have a reason to feel sad. Traditional gala dinner has been excluded from the program of the event. ICANN’s VP Christopher Mondini explained in a blog post that costs of gala were usually covered by sponsors. However, since the importance of ICANN meetings increased, so did the number of attendees, it has grown to 3000 people. It was impossible to find a sponsor for gala with this number of guests.
At the same time sources from domain industry assure that initially gala in LA was in fact planned. Moreover, such companies as Fox Studios, Neustar and MarkMonitor have committed to be sponsors and provide $250 thousand. But ICANN has refused to make its own contribution – around 150 thousand dollars. Mondini denies this information. According to him, there is a clear misinterpretation: ICANN paid 150 thousand for the organization for the gala in Singapore; a party in LA was not even planned. Anyway, Christopher Mondini highlights that corporation’s management believes that ICANN’s activity does not imply spending significant amounts of money on parties.
