Although most attendees surveyed from the Cytokines 2020 Virtual Meeting would prefer to meet in person, there is a strong preference for organizing hybrid meetings, with both in-person and online presentations & sessions – intertwined, as well as virtual and in-person interactions, webcast video presentation, live commentary, online chat & Zoom discussions, bringing the onsite and virtual community together. The virtual format will be added to future meetings to make them more inclusive and sustainable.
The organization and platform for the virtual meeting were excellent. The opportunity to watch concurrent talks in different sessions
Flexibility in when to listen to the talks, ability for many students to join on short budget
The platform itself was great, very functional and intuitive to use. The Future of Cytokine Networking event was great fun and a terrific way to meet other attendees.
I will say, I like everything about this year’s meeting. Being virtual, it came with a lot of merits including good number of participants, wider coverage (from different countries), allowed flexibility and on a lighter mode, I didn’t have to pay flight and hotel bills. Also the features on the platform were amazing, such as the Networking Lounge, the cafe, the briefcase, the lobby, exhibition, for me the Virtual platform was the highlight.
I really likes the LabRoots platform. It was easy to navigate and felt like being physically present at the conference. I also loved the diversity of the research presented between the plenary sessions, symposia and lightning talks. I also liked that the different talks were available on demand for 2 weeks following the end of the conference; it allowed plenty of time to catch up on missed content.
With virtual content, I was able to sit on many more talks and posters than I would have at the physical meeting