Following the confirmation of Cartagena, Colombia for the December 2010 ICANN meeting, the ICANN Board has set aside a budget of US$2.126 million for that meeting, the last of the three ICANN traditionally holds each year in different regions of the world.
The amount, a maximum not to be exceeded, is inline with recent ICANN meeting costs.
Cartagena is scheduled to last for a week, from December 5 to 10, 2010.
ICANN practices regional rotation for the 3 international meetings it holds each calendar year, with the last one of 2010 planned for South America. Several venues were looked at but it now appears that the Colombian city of Cartagena has been selected.
Cartagena promises to be a landmark meeting for ICANN as the final version of the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook is scheduled to be released there. If that happens, then the first round of applications should start in Q1 2011, paving the way for an initial wave of new gTLDs to hit the Net in late 2011/early 2012.
