Research Drove Elsevier to Launch the Vaccine Virtual Conference as a Hybrid Event
“Our studies showed that researchers, our attendees, would like to attend twice as many conferences than they actually can,” said Marielle Berden, Business Development Manager, Elsevier, S&T Publishing.
“Many conference delegates can’t actually attend a physical conference because of time and money constraints. Hybrid conferences allow researchers to listen to and interact with international keynote speakers from the comfort of their desk. We wanted to take our scientific knowledge to as wide an audience as possible.”
The Vaccine Virtual show was tied to the 3rd Vaccine Global Congress taking place in Singapore from 4-6 October, 2009, and covered all facets of vaccinology, including: human vaccines for infectious and non-infectious diseases, veterinary vaccines, adjuvants, drug delivery, production, safety and regulatory aspects. The target audience for the virtual event was similar to the physical event, only difference being that more people from a much larger geographic area would be able to attend the virtual event.
To market the event, Elsevier sent out 4 emails to their in-house list promoting the physical as well as virtual event. They also sent out one e-mail post event promoting the content that was available in the virtual environment. There were several reminder e-mails once people signed up for the virtual congress. Virtual delegates were charged $99 to access the event and physical attendees could access the event for free.
The virtual event drew about 300 registrants, from 43 different countries. The producers offered a mix of live and on-demand presentations from a mix of speakers including representatives from major pharmaceutical companies, university researchers and government agencies. “We experimented with different virtual formats, offering a total of 25 webcasts of which 9 were full streaming video presentations (including slides),” noted Berden. “The virtual conference displayed posters included in the physical event in a searchable format and virtual delegates browsed that environment for over an hour on average.”
“We felt we accomplished our objective of extending the audience for the conference as a large number of delegates did access the virtual event. The virtual conference exceeded expectations from virtual delegates, and they were very impressed by the way they could access presentations. There’s always opportunity to improve, and we continue to look into ways of improving the virtual delegate’s experience. “
When we asked what they would do differently if they had it to do over, they felt the area of online networking opportunities could be improved. Overall, the event which was run on the ON24 platform was deemed a success.
“Many conference delegates can’t actually attend a physical conference because of time and money constraints. Hybrid conferences allow researchers to listen to and interact with international keynote speakers from the comfort of their desk. We wanted to take our scientific knowledge to as wide an audience as possible.”
The Vaccine Virtual show was tied to the 3rd Vaccine Global Congress taking place in Singapore from 4-6 October, 2009, and covered all facets of vaccinology, including: human vaccines for infectious and non-infectious diseases, veterinary vaccines, adjuvants, drug delivery, production, safety and regulatory aspects. The target audience for the virtual event was similar to the physical event, only difference being that more people from a much larger geographic area would be able to attend the virtual event.
To market the event, Elsevier sent out 4 emails to their in-house list promoting the physical as well as virtual event. They also sent out one e-mail post event promoting the content that was available in the virtual environment. There were several reminder e-mails once people signed up for the virtual congress. Virtual delegates were charged $99 to access the event and physical attendees could access the event for free.
The virtual event drew about 300 registrants, from 43 different countries. The producers offered a mix of live and on-demand presentations from a mix of speakers including representatives from major pharmaceutical companies, university researchers and government agencies. “We experimented with different virtual formats, offering a total of 25 webcasts of which 9 were full streaming video presentations (including slides),” noted Berden. “The virtual conference displayed posters included in the physical event in a searchable format and virtual delegates browsed that environment for over an hour on average.”
“We felt we accomplished our objective of extending the audience for the conference as a large number of delegates did access the virtual event. The virtual conference exceeded expectations from virtual delegates, and they were very impressed by the way they could access presentations. There’s always opportunity to improve, and we continue to look into ways of improving the virtual delegate’s experience. “
When we asked what they would do differently if they had it to do over, they felt the area of online networking opportunities could be improved. Overall, the event which was run on the ON24 platform was deemed a success.
Tags: elsevier, marielle berden, on24, s&t publishing
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