Insider Events – 2021 Canadian Surgery Forum

2021 Canadian Surgery Forum: The Virtual Edition 
Date: September 21-24, 2021
City, Country: Virtual 
Host Venue: Online platform 
Number of Attendees: 667 delegates

Target Audience: Canadian General Surgeons, Surgical Residents, Surgical Fellows, Medical Students and Pharmaceutical companies

Main Objective: Education

Changes to the event: 
The event was originally scheduled to be in Halifax, Nova Scotia this year. However, like all conferences in 2021, it was switched to virtually due to COVID restrictions.

Challenges: 
This will come as no surprise to fellow planners, but there were numerous obstacles to overcome:

• Planning a national medical conference in the middle of a deadly pandemic
• Attracting sponsors and exhibitors to a virtual environment with no opportunity to physically interact with delegates
• Pre-recording 140+ speakers in the middle of their summer vacation during a pandemic
• The learning curve of planning an entirely virtual event 
• Hosting a (live) suturing competition virtually between two surgical residents (one in Ottawa, one in Saskatchewan) where the competition comes down to the split second based on suturing knots (sewing up a surgical incision)
• Encouraging delegates to register early in order to determine if the event was on track to make the budget work or not
• Offering alternatives to networking (since networking as we know it in-person cannot be replicated online)

Biggest Success: 
Obtaining a comparable number of delegates that our in-person conference draws. Conferences in 2020 saw larger registration numbers because virtual conferences were new and there was a honeymoon phase, we were all having with them. However, the honeymoon wore off with the poor experiences delegates, sponsors and exhibitors continued to have online.

Financial and geographical barriers to events have been significantly reduced in the virtual world, bringing in more competition for planners who rely on one annual conference for revenue. I was conscious not to depend on delegate loyalty or brand awareness to guarantee my Board or Sponsors delegate numbers and revenue. I was pleased to see that our strategic virtual design paired with our creative marketing campaign attracted almost as many delegates online as our in-person conference does.

New and Innovative Planning: 
I had the luxury of not rapidly pivoting in 2020 to turn an in-person conference into a virtual one. We cancelled our Fall 2020 conference in April 2020 and decided not to offer it virtually. This allowed for additional time to learn everything I could about virtual event design, Zoom fatigue, adult online learning and what does and does not translate virtually. I have said on record before that the conferences in 2020 were ‘planned’ but the conferences in 2021 will be ‘designed’ and I set out to do exactly that.

‘Designing’ the Conference: 
With the very little Event Design Canvas training I have and the research I did during 2020, I decided to strategically design our conference as a ‘broadcast’ and leaned into what works well virtually and avoid anything that doesn’t translate.

When designing the schedule, we were mindful to offer numerous breaks, even if that meant less accredited content could be offered. This was to avoid Zoom fatigue and give delegates time to digest the content away from their screens.

When designing the virtual platform, I worked with the developers and my Project Manager to make the platform as user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing as possible. I did not want virtual lobbies or virtual plenary rooms with virtual avatars. I instead designed the “lobby” to be a Netflix-style homepage.

Before registration opened, I had a company produce a 60-second video which acted as a ‘preview’ (like a movie trailer) teaser about all our session topics and ended with “coming to a device near you September 2021”.

The platform opened early, one week prior to the conference, to allow delegates to get familiar with the platform and to set up their profiles. I got this idea from an MPI colleague of mine and I truly believe it helped us reduce tech issues once the conference was underway.

When the conference began, I had seven channels on day one and five channels from day two to four. The channels were not designated to specific surgical sub specialties in a deliberate attempt for our delegates to “channel surf” and take in as much education as they can. Something they could not do at our in-person conference (convention centres are too large to audit multiple sessions at once). I had a company produce session introduction videos that were inspired by the beginning of a TV show or movie; introducing the characters (our speakers) with music and graphics.

Successes: 
I took a huge chance designing the conference this way considering our delegates had probably attended dozens of virtual events between April 2020 and September 2021 and may have expectations of how virtual conferences should look and operate. However, the feedback that I received was extremely positive and most delegates thought the platform was easy to navigate, engaging & modern.

Challenges: 
Over the four days, the conference offered 56 individual sessions. Other than six keynotes, the remaining sessions were all panels. I had hoped that the panels could pre-record together (better flow, one video file etc.) However, that proved impossible with surgeons’ busy schedules and being the middle the summer vacation. Therefore, we received approximately 130 individual videos from every speaker. Sending the virtual platform company that many videos would surely result in the wrong videos being played in the wrong order or videos being lost etc. Therefore, I had to hire a video editor to piece together these 130 videos with 53 session intro videos into 56 playable mp4 files and adjust for sound and video quality to ensure a consistent viewing experience. I did not originally anticipate this would be required and thus did not have it in my timeline or my budget. In the end however, I made both my budget and my timeline.

Future Conferences:
Should the Canadian Surgery Forum be hybrid in 2022, I am confident that the lessons learned from 2021 can be applied to offer a better viewing experience for our remote audience thus making medical education more accessible to surgeons.

Article compiled by Karen Norris CMP | LinkedIn, at Canadian Association of General Surgeons

Article edited by Cynthia Beaudin, Canada Foundation for Innovation