Case Studies

Microscience Microscopy Congress - delivering a multiday event online

The Microscience Microscopy Congress is the flagship five day conference of the Royal Microscopical Society (RMS). This biannual event attracts professionals who attend to learn about the work, techniques and technology in microscience.

Due to COVID-19, the RMS decided to run their 2021 congress online for the first time.

They selected the ReadyMembership platform to host 180 sessions across 6 simultaneous live streams, plus commercial workshops, poster presentations and exhibitors.

It was highly successful with the 1313 delegates and 51 exhibitors praising the Congress and its platform - which they still use today to access on-demand content.

The challenge

The biggest challenge was to give delegates, speakers and exhibitors an event experience as good as the traditional face-to-face one, if not better.

Staff also needed to be able to manage a complex event easily online.

Crucially, sponsors and exhibitors needed to be at heart of the event - replicating the interactivity they usually have with delegates at physical stands.

The Project

The Congress website provided an innovative interactive experience for attendees and exhibitors.

Attendee’s could:

- Seamlessly jump in and out of live scientific sessions from the main schedule
- See countdowns - showing how long until a session started
- Ask speakers questions using in-session Q&A & chat box
- Join commercial workshops via integrated Zoom links
- View 185 posters in an online gallery
- Join break-out sessions to discuss worK
- Visit online exhibitor stands with video and documentation

Exhibitors stands:

- Engaging visually compelling online stands with rich content
- Interactivity - live chat boxes to talk to attendees
- Book online meetings
- Exhibitor banners and stand links within sessions and directory

How it worked

All streaming was managed by the RMS from within the Congress website. Scientific sessions were set up as Zoom links streamed through Vimeo - and embedded in the site.

Commercial workshops ran on external Zoom links, all of which were configured, launched and managed in the platform.

The RMS worked with exhibitors to collate and upload stand content. Companies could update content throughout the conference to reflect different products they were promoting.

The Result

Attendees praised the ease of using the Congress website and navigating between sessions. An entire multi-day physical conference was moved online - keeping the content, interactivity and engagement of the original.

- 230 speakers
- 51 exhibitors
- 1313 virtual attendees
- 180 online sessions
- 55 commercial workshops
- 6 simultaneous live streams
- 185 posters

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