The upcoming T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Las Vegas show (January 21-23 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino) is the first produced by Rick Latona.  He has ditched Rick Schwartz's "invitation only" policy and opened the show up to all (finally).  The new Rick has followed the lead of "fun" conferences like Domainer Mardi Gras and skipped ealry morning sessions.  According to the show schedule there are no morning sessions at all.  The content starts at noon.  Like Mardi Gras, Las Vegas lends itself to late night activities.  The show also offers more networking events, and half price tickets have been liberally available.  Monetization topics include "CPA as an Alternative to PPC" and "Optimizing Your Domain Portfolio in a PPC Environment."

DOMAINfest Global Follows from January 26th through the 28th at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica - a new venue for this show.   Oversee.net has pulled-out all the stops, returning to the Playboy Mansion and inviting Frank Schilling, Ron Sheridan, and Adam Roux to be the judges for the show's new Pitchfest contest, which focus on domain monetization. The contest is designed to explore new products or services designed to enhance the value of parked or developed domain names.  Pitchfests are often seen as blatant self-promotion and attendees at other conferences avoid such presentations.  It will be interesting to see if this new approach gains popularity with domain owners.  You can read their press release for all of the details.

Domainer Mardi Gras follows in February. Their sessions actually start a little earlier than T.R.A.F.F.I.C., at 10:45.  On the agenda are topics such as "Domain Name Investments in 2010 and beyond.  Where is the industry heading?"  I should be on a panel at the Conference - but I'm not sure which one yet.  Domainer Mardi Gras was apparently a small conference last year with a focus on fun (as can be seen in this video).    Last year it was sponsored by Modern Domainer magazine, which apparently is no more.  This year Parked has taken over as host, with a few additional sponsors announced.  This may be my last conference for a while as I work on cutting expenses in 2010.  How about you?