As a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, new regulations were introduced to prevent the disease from spreading. As a result, many organisers are announcing their plans to reschedule meetings and events to a later date. In addition, some events are undergoing rearrangement and will apply a different formula, taking advantage of available online tools.

Changing their formula from a traditional conference to a virtual meeting, the events developed by the Polish Diabetes Association provide a good example of adapting to the current circumstances.

Organiser of a series of webinars on the 2020 clinical guidelines of the Polish Diabetes Association and the optimal treatment of diabetes and its complications informs that the “proposed conference formula encompasses diverse, technologically advanced solutions, making it possible not only to passively attend a lecture or a session, but also to actively participate in a discussion. Thanks to the virtual character of conferences, they can be adjusted to the individualized needs of participants and the overall adapted formula. Attendees can choose to participate in the whole conference in real time and join the discussion in a moderated chat. Another option involves taking part in, for example, only select sessions and lectures. To make the participant experience more comfortable, all the sessions streamed live in real time will later be made available offline through the TVmed.pl multimedia platform dedicated to medical knowledge. Furthermore, all webinar participants will be given access to post-conference materials available for download and printing.

Besides the functionalities discussed above, the technological solutions applied in virtual meetings will facilitate a new formula of the conference, more dynamic that its traditional counterpart - by considerably shortening presentations and boosting the number of speakers involved in the conference and hailing from various destinations”.

Unable to actually welcome participants in the physical venue, the G2A Arena Exhibition & Congress Centre of Podkarpackie (Subcarpathian) voivodeship in Jasionka near Rzeszów partnered up with the healthcare sector to launch a series of online conferences on diseases of civilisation of the 21st century, inaugurated on 8 April. Its organisers activated a special link for attendees to register and receive unique conference materials. They also encouraged submitting questions that experts will later answer during the live webinar.

Municipal and regional convention bureaux regularly monitor the situation in particular cities and regions. Supported by Poland Convention Bureau of Polish Tourism Organisation (Polska Organizacja Turystyczna - POT), the CBs implement new solutions intended to help destinations stay relevant among foreign and Polish meeting planners. They also work together with organisers and venues to continue and secure new events for their destinations. Warsaw Convention Bureau prepared a summary of all confirmed events it will host by 2026, including the status of events scheduled to take place in the nearest future (see the attachment). According to Gdańsk Convention Bureau, Women in Travel Summit Europe has been moved from October 2020 to September 2021, while the website of Convention Bureau - Wrocław features an extensive report on the state of events hosted by the city.

We would like to take this opportunity and encourage everyone to remain active online and follow the latest news.