Feedback from Dublin 2023 “You spoke, We listened” Dom Tidey

Each year we look carefully at the feedback we are given on the conference. This year as part of the top down review of all things EuRA, we changed the way we collect that data, splitting for the first time between using the App for session evaluations, and our online survey asking about the conference more generally.

Delegates rated all three of our keynotes very highly. Frances Edmonds always scores at the top of the scale and this year was no different. You also very much enjoyed the opening keynote by David McWilliams and really loved our closing keynote Ken Nwadike. Unfortunately due to copyright, we can’t put either David or Kens addresses on our YouTube channel but you can find the irrepressible Frances on there along with all the filmed sessions with the exception of Ignite which faced a copyright issue which led YouTube to ban it! It has now been edited to comply and is now on YouTube!

One big theme was numbers. Some delegates felt that the venue was too small for the numbers we had and we agree. Having discussed this issue at length over the years, we have always agreed as a team and Board that limiting to 650 is the optimum way for delegates to get the most from the event. However, we have now decided that the 750 figure we were at in Dublin will become the new limit, and as a result we will source larger venues. As Tad says in his CEO Report, when we planned for Dublin, we were looking at maximum numbers of 600 based on a variety of factors. We felt strongly that conference demand would wane in our post Covid economies, but we were wrong. Not only did we get to the 750 delegate number, but we still had over 100 people on a waitlist who could not attend. The Welcome Reception was crowded and noisy and that feedback was valuable for the venue as it was the largest group they had accommodated and the point was well taken. So from now on, we will be limiting the maximum number of delegates from a single company to four with certain exceptions for sponsors whose financial contribution allows us to not increase delegate prices. We will also only allow bookings from EuRA Members until November 1st so get in EARLY!

One other big change will be to when the conference is held. We will now begin the conference on Monday afternoon with four, four hour symposia from 13:00 to 17:00. Tuesday will be the Conference Opening, plenary sessions and Welcome Reception. Wednesday will be plenary sessions and the Gala Dinner and Thursday will be plenary sessions, the closing keynote and destination reveal and the Party Night. This will enable people to travel home on Friday without missing out. The Symposia and Party Night will remain add ons.

We will wherever we can, have a dedicated networking lounge. We will no longer be running concurrent sessions, we will concentrate the programme on plenary and workshop sessions running only one at time. Delegates have told us that planning networking around multiple session choices leaves them feeling spread too thin.

We will make more efforts to introduce Newcomers to seasoned EuRA Conference delegates by having a specifically coloured lanyard and encourage people to identify and reach out to newbies.

We have been asked many times about how the Gala Dinner works and no, we will not be re-introducing a table plan, the event will remain free-seating. However the reality of 750 delegates does mean that in some venues we will have to split the dinner into two rooms. What we won’t do again is split it between two buildings as this caused massive FOMO for delegates and an unseemly crush in Dublin to be in the bigger ballroom. The alcohol service at dinners and parties is fully included while seated and in some places, an after dinner bar can be provided at no cost. But in other places such as Dublin, which was extremely expensive, this was not possible so the after dinner bars were on a paid basis. This will be the norm going forward as we can see already that costs for the next two conferences are at least 20% higher than pre-Covid and we do not want to raise prices.

The debates we have around the boardroom table on where to locate the conference always take into account the desire for us all to be somewhere sunny and warm and we hope that will be the case in Vilamoura. But again, the decision must be venue specific and when we find a great venue with the space for 750 people to be able to network effectively, then this does become the driver for where we will be. This is of course along with a myriad of other considerations such as and not limited to, the desirability of the place itself, transport links, party and dinner venues, new locations, hotels and not big congress centres, hotels with a big bar and networking areas, the quality of the hotel and staff team, the logistics of enough meeting rooms for sponsor meetings and a hall large enough for plenary sessions, networking lounges and of course crucially, price. We have excluded many many great cities on the basis of costs, one in particular where the only venue large enough was literally double what we paid in Dublin both for delegate rates and rooms. You can work out where we will be unlikely to go if we keep delegate prices at €700!

We held a briefing to outline the changes at the start of June and it’s available on our YouTube channel.

The most important thing for our brilliant members to do is BOOK EARLY! The bookings will open on Monday, September 25th. If we have a waitlist, we will refund your place if you realise you can’t make it at the last minute, so get that booking secured, get your hotel room booked and join us in fabulous Portugal for EuRA by the sea 2024!