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Staging a Successful Virtual Conference - Tips & Tricks

Todd Helton, MBA, Senior Director–Meetings & Conferences, AICPA  | 

Managing an events business in the midst of a pandemic has provided challenges like any other we have seen. Organizations have been forced to scramble to find solutions for delivering, or in some cases, cancelling their events. The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, like many of our fellow associations, has transitioned its event calendar to a virtual-only environment for all events from May-December 2020.

The Association’s 10 years of hosting online simulcasts of our in-person events helped our transition to a virtual-only approach, but we still had to make numerous adjustments to our previous experience. Simulcasting and virtual-only are not the same thing – simulcasting is driven by the in-person event while virtual-only is THE event. The following presentation—first presented to the Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants (CAPA)--will provide you with a series of questions you should answer when migrating in-person events to the virtual arena. This move isn’t something that just happens without proper planning. Good luck!