Since the beginning of the crisis, Messe Basel has managed to hold quite a number of virtual and hybrid events and is now able to share the findings of this experience. Digital congresses like the Annual Meeting of the German, Austrian and Swiss Societies for Hematology and Medical Oncology (DGHO); the Annual Biocontrol Industry Meeting (ABIM); and the CLINAM, the twelfth European and Global Summit for Nanomedicine – all held in October – have been piling up high numbers of attendees connecting to the centre’s digital platform.
Despite the success of these congresses, delegates and organisers insist that success is not guaranteed just by transferring a live conference to its virtual counterpart. Instead, such meetings need to be reconsidered from scratch as digital and fit the needs of shorter sessions for more effective one-to-one discussions.