Conference Matters 144

TECHNOLOGY

bine with staying home. We decided to hold the next conference entirely in person again. We’re considering holding a hybrid event for the upco ming edition. The added value of meeting in person “Certainly at the national level, people want to meet each other physically,” says Derks. “This

He points out that there were far fewer hybrid variants at European conferences than right after COVID. Networking at a live event was crucial for participants. Sitting in front of a screen for several days, hours on end, at a multi- day conference is impossible. “When considering a hybrid congress, there is often a tendency to immediately develop a state-

A best-of-both-worlds solution could be to hold satellite events

way, participants meet with colleagues from other regions, and it offers the opportunity to seecolleagues from other clinics again. The younger generation hears more quickly from the network about career opportunities.” She also mentions the high costs of live streaming, which means that the hybrid variant is almost non-existent at national events. There are no fully online events anymore. “There’s an incre ase in accredited webinars, with tests before and after attending and interim attendance checks.” Sponsors generally also have difficulty with the online variant, says Derks. “Pharmaceutical com panies mainly want to physically meet medical specialists. And online exposure is complex given the laws and regulations regarding phar mac eutical advertising. It’s difficult to see who’s watching the screen.” All but disappeared According to medical meeting specialist Pepijn Klerkx, co-owner of PCO Congress Care, the hybrid format all but disappeared after COVID. “These days, national meetings rarely have any thing hybrid. Participants only choose to attend smaller symposia lasting two or four hours online.”

of-the-art high-tech platform,” says Klerkx. “My advice is to first open the registration and see how many people will register for the online version. With 30 registrations, there’s no point in investing tens of thousands of euros in a full-fledged platform. It’s better to offer a discount on the registration fee and a basic version of the online programme.” Pricing doesn’t change much His experience is that pricing has little influence on the number of registrations. At a European medical congress in 2022, there were 18 online participants out of a total of about 980 partici pants, at a rate of €500. For the 2023 edition, the registration fee for the online variant was €150 for four days of live streams of the plenary sessions and online poster presentations. Again, 36 participants was seen as marginal. “We’ve based our approach on full-fledged pricing for online participants because they already save on travel and accommodation costs. In that case, you have to offer value for money with interactive elements such as Q&As with speakers and participation in discussion groups.”

The European Society of Cardiology Congress had to switch from a planned physical event in RAI Amsterdam to a fully digital alternative in a short period of time in 2020. For ‘The Digital Experience’, the programme had to be complete- ly revised and adapted for an online format. The ESC Congress returned to RAI Amsterdam in 2023 with an expanded hybrid format. The Congress offered over 800 scientific sessions, plenary lectures and seminars open to in-person and online attendees. The Congress attracted approximately 23,500 attendees on-site and 5,000 attendees online. The organisation reported similar results for the 2024 edition in London. More than 26,000 participants travelled to Excel London, while some 5,000 attendees joined online. In collaboration with the World Congress of Cardiology, the ESC Congress 2025 in Madrid will be presented in a hybrid format. There will be different price categories for in-person parti cipation in Madrid (standard fee €940-€1,240, depending on when someone books) and for online participation only (€245).

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