Anaesthesia 2021 - a totally virtual experience

Back in early March 2020, we made the tough decision to cancel our annual flagship conference ‘Anaesthesia 2020’ which was due to take place in Manchester. COVID-19 was starting to take hold across the world and with speakers and attendees flying from across the world, and the pressure rising on the NHS, we decided to cancel the event. The venue in Manchester kindly agreed to move our booking to May the following year, when we all expected we would be back to ‘normal’.

However, at the end of last year we saw hospital admissions increase and lockdowns tightened across the world. We made the decision to do something we have never done before – to run Anaesthesia 2021 as a fully virtual conference.

Since the summer of 2020 we had converted most the College’s conferences and events to virtual platforms but taking the RCoA’s largest conference and putting it online was going to present a whole new array of challenges.

As Anaesthesia 2021 is our flagship conference we wanted to ensure the best possible delegate experience, so finding the right online venue was our first task. There are many different online platforms available, each with a variety of functionalities and costs.

We started our research and asked our event networks for recommendations. We were highly recommended an event agency called ‘The Business Narrative’ who have been specialising in hybrid and virtual events for many years.

After a discussion with them we were introduced to a platform called Hopin. Recent delegate feedback from this platform included ‘attending an event on the platform was as if it was a physical event’ which is exactly what we had been looking for.

Anaesthesia 2021 usually welcomes exhibition stands and sponsorship opportunities. Hopin allows us to showcase these exhibition stands and offers an experience very similar to a face-to-face event. The platform also offers a coffee lounge for networking, private meeting scheduling and 1-2-1 video and audio chat options. There’s an added bonus of speed networking, giving delegates the opportunity to meet someone new every three minutes.

Running events virtually has brought many benefits to our attendees:

• we have managed to attract a more regional and international audience
• we have been able to invite speakers from across the world to our programmes without having to fly them to the UK
• attendees no longer have to worry about travel time and costs
• reduced flight, train and car travel means a huge reduction in the carbon footprint of the event
• delegates benefit from a flexible approach; they can watch the content on-demand if they are unable to attend the full day or go back and watch talks again when it’s more convenient
• the on-demand approach means it’s easier to balance the conference around work commitments and family life

Virtual events, however, are not without their challenges, we have all experienced internet connectivity and microphone issues in the last year. We aim to overcome these by making sure we arrange technical rehearsals with all our speakers and chairs in advance.

For Anaesthesia 2021 we will also be opening the conference an hour prior to the conference starting so that attendees can check they have a stable internet connection and familiarise themselves with the Hopin platform.

Please bear in mind when attending a virtual conference that it can be difficult for speakers and chairs, when presenting to a virtual audience as they are unable to see anyone while presenting so it is hard for them to ‘read the room’ and it can often feel like they are talking to themselves.

Hopin has a chat bar function at the side of the main stage and in the workshop sessions, so please do let the speakers know how much you are enjoying their talk and do ask questions in the question-and-answer bar throughout.

For Anaesthesia 2022 we hope to be able to finally make it to Manchester with the twist of having a hybrid event so we can also offer the event online to those who have taken a liking to attending a conference from the comfort of your own sofa.

We are really looking forward to Anaesthesia 2021, we have great programme and we hope to see you there.

Jodie Phillips