This year’s Austrian Society for Labour Law and Social Law conference took place at the beginning of the month in a somewhat different environment. After 55 years of taking place Zell am See in the state of Salzburg, the organisers felt an online only event would not fully suit their purposes.
The conference was moved to 1-2 October 2020 at the Ferry Porsche Congress Centre, which was ready to follow all hygiene rules of physical distancing and masks. The program was adjusted to the framework of the hygiene concept, including the evening dinner. The attendees reached a number of 400 instead of 500 in previous years, which was also helpful to the safe organisation of the conference.
Univ. Prof. Dr. Rudolf Mosler, President of the Society and responsible for the conference, was always in favour of looking at new concepts to fit the goals of the event. “In times like these, you always have to anticipate the risk that participants will cancel at short notice. For us, a short-term cancellation is not much worse than if we had cancelled the conference half a year ago. The possibility that we could hold the conference again – albeit somewhat differently than usual – was much more important to us than to cancel it immediately. We accept the risk. When in doubt, I believe we should try,” he advises other event planners in similar situations.