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No gala at ICANN 51

Kevin Murphy, September 16, 2014, 12:58:53 (UTC), Gossip

One thing ICANN’s thrice-yearly public meetings never lack is free booze, but there’s going to be a little bit less of it at ICANN 51 in Los Angeles next month.
ICANN said yesterday that the gala event, which is typically held on the Wednesday night, will not happen in LA.
ICANN veep Christopher Mondini blogged:

Historically, the gala has been organized and supported by an outside sponsor. ICANN51 will not have such a sponsor, and therefore no gala. ICANN meetings have grown to around 3,000 attendees, and so have the challenges of finding a gala sponsor.

LA is of course ICANN’s home town, hence the lack of need for a local host/sponsor company.
There have been some really spectacular galas over the years — and some not-so-great ones — so the lack of such an event this time around may be mildly disappointing to some attendees.
On the bright side (arguably), Music Night, which was introduced in the Beckstrom era but hasn’t appeared at the last few meetings, is rumored to be making a return for LA.
Usually a Tuesday-night event sponsored by PIR and Afilias, Music Night sees musically inclined ICANN community members jamming together, followed by a bit of karaoke.
Facebook has it that the ah hoc band GEMS (Global Equal Multi-Stakeholders) will be making an appearance to play a selection of bottoms-up, consensus-based classic rock numbers.
Unfortunately, personal circumstances are very probably going to keep yours truly away from ICANN 51, but gifts of whiskey sent to the usual address will of course be consumed in solidarity on the appropriate evening.

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Comments (2)

  1. Acro says:
    September 16, 2014 at 3:14 pm

    They can be sponsored by the XYZ generation, as it has money to throw away.

    Reply
  2. Nigel Roberts says:
    September 17, 2014 at 5:37 pm

    The Galas have in later years become entirely unwieldy. So much so, that the ICANN Board, Chairman and President seemed more and more inconspicuous with each event.
    The best of all Galas was Prague which was a party that would put some of the Oscar bashes to shame. It’s been slowly downhill since the.
    And whilst I was always a great fan on Music Night, I’m suspecting it will be a shadow of its former self.
    A bit like Hawaii-5-0 or Dallas.

    Reply

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