This conference with poster presentations was originally planned as a fully in-person 2-day meeting to take place in 2020 at Robinson College Cambridge.  Due to the ongoing challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, our client team, led by Dr Mark Wills, Director of Research at the Department of Medicine and Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology & Infectious Disease, chose to err on the side of caution shifting to a fully virtual conference in March 2022 with no in-person elements. Fellow PCO Suzy Howes & Associates Ltd, who had been involved in the planning of the original in-person event, approached OD&V to project management the delivery of all virtual elements.

The OD&V remit included:

• Source and manage the virtual platform
• Event website copy support
• Attend virtual planning meetings, implementation of a timeline and ensure that deadlines were adhered to
• Sponsorship management to include development of attractive ‘virtual’ packages to financially support the event
• Speaker communication management to include collation of photos, bios and pre-recorded presentations and virtual tech briefings
• Development of a 100+ poster gallery with individual poster presentation rooms via Zoom
• Creation and development of engagement opportunities to encourage delegate interaction
• Provision of virtual event staffing for the entire conference, working from a minute detailed technical running order

Dr Mark Wills, Co-Chair of the Local Organising Committee for CMV Action said, "Working with the team at Opening Doors & Venues on our conference was an absolute pleasure from the very first meeting to the last talk of the conference. We had to rapidly refocus our meeting from an in-person to a virtual conference, Rose and her team, who had substantial expertise in running this sort of meeting, were invaluable in helping us focus on what we required and identifying and working with an online platform and developer for the virtual meeting. The team also handled all of our speaker invitations, submissions of talks, speaker training sessions, and running of green/speaker-ready rooms during the sessions, in addition to all the work around the posters session as well as all correspondence with delegates' inquires. Their support and involvement in developing the programme and abstract book in addition to negotiations with sponsors were absolutely invaluable. We had a fantastic experience working with the team, who delivered a professional and very successful conference, I would have no hesitation in working with them again in the future."

Feedback from Delegates:

“This is one of the CMV meeting where, paradoxically, I've learned the most. Because talks were pre-recorded and made available to all attendees at any time of the day (or night), I had a chance to view and listen to all presentations, even those that I missed "live". [……] If anything, it was the absolute best meeting I had in terms of cost vs benefits! This year the CMV meeting was a truly ENJOYABLE experience, which sums it all!”

“I did find the panel sessions interesting, and I liked being able to type in questions rather than ask live.”