ACH2 Conference, VIRTUAL EVENT 2020

Background

The ACH² conference is an annual conference held by the Australian Centre for HIV and Hepatitis Virology Research. ACH² is based at The University of Sydney and is one of Australia’s four national centres for HIV research with a purpose to deliver research outcomes of significance to improve the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of HIV and HCV in Australia and internationally.

The conference is usually run in-person for 3 consecutive days and brings together researchers, teachers and experts from around Australia and internationally to present their research and findings. Due to COVID-19 the conference was not able to run physically however ACH² still wanted to create a conference to connect and bring together their professional community and share research. ACH² did not have the expertise in running a virtual conference and this is where Phoenix came in…

The Brief

The ACH² conference organiser engaged Phoenix for an end-to-end service for a 3 day virtual conference that consisted of 7 hours of virtual event management per day. Key requirement being managing all the technical/ AV requirements, providing event producers for virtual platform management on-the-day as well as a technical rehearsal to support speakers prior to the ACH2 virtual conference.

This community of academics was moderately familiar with the virtual platform, Zoom. However a key requirement for Phoenix was to provide detailed briefings with speakers through briefing documents and technical rehearsals and a dedicated event producer to support the technical requirements of speakers & attendees. The lead time for this project was 4 weeks, therefore ACH² wanted an expert team who could adapt quickly to their needs and provide the expert support needed for a conference of this scale.

The Solution

The Phoenix team developed and executed an extensive plan to ensure the success of the ACH² conference. This included:

• Creating platform links for the conference using Zoom Pro Business.
• Management of the Virtual Event Platform – Zoom.
• Developing technical run sheets.
• Hosting group speaker briefings/ technical rehearsal for speakers.
• Managing 2 Virtual Stage Managers.
• Facilitating virtual panel discussions
• Collating and managing speaker assets such as presentation slides.
• Regular WIP meetings with the ACH²
• Recording the virtual conference for post-event use.
• Development of Speaker Technical FAQ document.
• Development of holding slides for use during the virtual conference.
• Managing all technical questions both live in technical rehearsal sessions and over email address.
• On-the-day technical support over 3 days
• Risk analysis on all potential issues.
• Post-event debrief meeting

The Results

3 days, 2 virtual event producers, 60 speakers and 130 virtual attendees.

Phoenix was proud to work with the ACH² conference team to provide an insightful, education and inspirational conference. From internationally renowned speakers to fast paced research grant pitches, the conference provided their speakers and attendees with a diverse range of research and insights. The response from the audience was great with many attendees appreciating the opportunity to share their knowledge and research, particularly one of this scale and duration when their community was physically divided due to COVID-19. Both in the weeks leading up to the event and over the 3 day conference, the Phoenix Team worked hard to ensure the delivery of the conference was of a significant high standard.

The ACH² conference team were pleased with the outcome of their virtual conference and received numerous amounts of positive feedback from both the speakers and attendees.

Client or Attendee Quote/Testimonial:

“Thanks so much for your work behind the scenes; everything is going exceptionally well!  The Director called me during lunch and commented on how smoothly it is progressing, which is great 😊”

Joanne Camilleri
Administration Officer
Executive Assistant to Professor Tony Cunningham AO FAHMS