CASE HISTORY

European Society of Cardiology (ESC)

Valbonne Sophia Antipolis, France Largest meeting ESC Congress Last year Aug. 25–29, 2012, Munich This year Aug. 31–Sept. 4, 2013, Amsterdam Next year Aug. 30–Sept. 3, 2014, Barcelona escardio.org/congresses/esc-2013

“It’s annual, it’s at the end of August, it’s international, it’s 30,000 people or more — somewhere in between 30,000 and 33,000 people,” said Ben Hainsworth, ESC’s director of congresses and meetings. “I’d say 75 percent cardiologists, 5 percent other MDs, and 20 percent industry employees. [The exhibit hall is] decreasing, I’d say. We’ve got 150 companies exhibiting, and it’s 25,000 square meters gross [about 250,000 square feet]. That’s what it is at the moment and long may it stay that, but I don’t think it will. And the mission is to reduce the impact of cardiovascular disease in its broader sense. It can be in terms of the cost of managing the disease or the burden of the disease on society.”

South America to our meetings. So there were a few sessions that offered translation, and we stopped…. But that thought has been resurrected

— to offer some sessions in foreign languages with simultaneous translation.

Are your attendees showing up at your meetings expecting a different type of experience? LA Well, they’re certainly expecting different technologies. I struggle with this sometimes, because we’ll go to PCMA, we’ll go to certain ses- sions, and they talk about how a lot of it is about the environment and different room sets. [But attendees] really like that continuity in the learn- ing — how the learning is delivered. However, they are expecting other things when they come to the meeting, especially technology. They want the mobile app, they want interaction; more people are using their iPads and you’re get- ting audience response. But where I find my chal- lenge in creativity sometimes is, yeah, I’d love to set up a room that has couches and different areas, but for the way that our content is delivered, it wouldn’t work. So for medical meetings especially, we need to be creative in other areas, and I’d love for somebody to hit me over the head with some- thing that I didn’t think about.

BH It’s great to talk about new technology and new learning formats and stuff, but if you alienate

not going to get rid of meetings, let’s be honest. But, as Ben said, I think there are other opportunities there, especially with our content and what we do with our content, which is the most valuable asset of any organization right now.

BH We don’t actually use the word “planner” so much. The people that I’ve got working for me, up and coming in event management, they’re beginning to go beyond the five-day event and they are themselves — the very people who are planning the congresses or the conventions or the shows — also involved in maintaining some kind of dialogue with the delegates and the association for the whole year. None of the people I now employ on specific events con- centrate just on that five-day occurrence. It’s becoming less of a logistical job and slightly more strategic.

FN In our case, we have not been proactive in strengthening our international base, whether it’s on a membership level or an attendance level to the meeting. Ten years or so ago, we went down that path of offering some of our sessions in Spanish, because we would find a significant attendance from

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half of your audience by doing so, it’s not so brilliant. Forcing social media into these big sessions — some people think it’s necessary, but I think half of the people would be alienated. But in general, to change what we’ve got, they’re just becoming more demanding. Not necessarily knowing exactly what they want, but they’re becoming a bit more discerning. We used to have 70 percent of people who came were

paid for by industry. They basically got shipped in on a coach, they were fed collectively, looked after collectively, and acted like a herd. And now that’s shifted completely the other way around. So it’s a lot more individual people who are really deciding

on their own to come, and they’re obviously, for that reason, much more demanding and harder to satisfy — but without saying what they might be expecting, what they might be demanding, what they’re going to be looking for. They simply are more demanding as a group of people. More of them have made the personal decision on their own to sacrifice their time or their holidays and money to go there.

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