The power of audience interaction
When the world’s largest specialty medical society fast-tracked their annual conference to a virtual event they created a richer attendee experience that met the moment – and changed their approach forever.
Organization
Founded in 1915 to advance the practice of medicine, the American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty society in the world. The ACP Annual Meeting is the premiere event for its 160,000 global members, all of whom lead the charge for continuing excellence in internal medicine.
The Challenge
In the spring of every year the ACP hosts its annual conference, typically drawing 7,000 physicians from around the world to share knowledge, best practices, and build enduring relationships. Historically, the ACP offered attendees recordings of the presentations as part of their registration package, as well as access to livestreams. The 2020 meeting featured 200 tracks, many of which offered continuing medical education credits (CMEs). We successfully ported the meeting to a virtual event, and in the process recognized that a critically important aspect of the event was lacking: real-time audience participation.
Our Solution
The ACP meetings are an extremely valuable educational experience, and for decades the availability of post-meeting content has been a hallmark of the event. When the pandemic necessitated a shift to an all virtual experience, we recorded all 200 sessions and live streamed 100 of those over the course of three days by doing 10 concurrent streams at a time. It was a giant leap in complexity compared to the work we’d done for them in the past.
After assisting with the transition to a fully virtual meeting it was clear that a hybrid remote and in-person event would solve one of the society’s biggest challenges: to offer opportunities to remotely engage with speakers and colleagues during their sessions. We created live chat communities for virtual attendees to interact with speakers in real time; audience members can upvote submitted questions so the most common ones can be answered, and made 200 hours of CME programming available – an increase of over 650%.
The Result
Synchronous content delivery democratized the Q&A process with in-person and online attendees on a level playing field for the very first time, increasing engagement and adding a powerful punch to what many physicians consider the most important event of the year.
In addition to the sale of recorded content generating revenue for the ACP, the society can charge the same amount for in person or virtual attendees because everyone gets real time access to the speakers. All attendees can access the entire meeting for 30 days after the event and have the option to upgrade to a full year of access for an additional fee.
One of the everlasting challenges for attendees is choosing sessions that align with their interests and educational objectives. Before switching to a hybrid event, in-person attendees could gather about 30 hours of CME credit. Now they can access all 200 hours. Without feeling pressure to gobble up every piece of content they can over a three-day span, in-person attendees can relax and have more fun, and have more opportunities for interpersonal connections.
Prior to the switch to a hybrid model, the meeting drew roughly 7,000 attendees; the 2023 event brought 9,000 physicians together.
SVP of IT for the American College of Physicians
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