Most Americans are off work today observing Memorial Day - a day when we pause to honor and remember the brave men and women who died while serving in our country's armed forces. For the rest of the world it was the start of another work week and in the Netherlands it was the first business day at the 8th annual edition of the Domaining Europe conference. 

The event got underway with informal networking at the Grand Hotel Amrâth Kurhaus in The Hague last night. This morning the formal business sessions began in what was billed as a ".Com Day". The closing day of the conference tomorrow will be a "Not .Com Day" that will focus on the hundreds of new TLDs that have been introduced over the past two years. 

Above: Domaining Europe conference Founder Dietmar Stefitz welcomed attendees to the 2016 Domaining Europe conference this morning. 

Below: A view of the audience. Dietmar said attendance at this year's show is up strongly. This is his first show in a new location after staging the first seven events in Valencia, Spain. Both of these photos are from attendee Dimitar Tashev who traveled from Bulgaria for the conference.

Above: Moderator Braden Pollock (far left) conducting a panel discussion about 
domain parking during today's .Com Day at Domaining Europe (photo from Dietmar Stefitz).

Below: In another session Braden talked domains with a panel that included several veteran investors (left to right after Braden are Frederick Schiwek, Christoph Gruneberg, Hennie 
Groot Lipman and Michael Bereslavsky.  (Photo from Christoph Gruneberg).

Above: Attendee Marc Stepken posted this view from his seat on Facebook today during 
one of the 13 business sessions on the Monday agenda. This evening Verisign 
hosted a gala dinner for show goers at the Catch Restaurant. 

Tomorrow the spotlight shifts to new gTLDs for Tuesday's Not .Com Day. Another highlight will be Domaining Europe's first ever domain auction that will be conducted by Undeveloped.nl. That event, scheduled to run from 5pm-9pm local time will close the show.