Everything that goes wrong when organizing congresses

1. Countless overtime hours

… and yet, nothing to show for it. As the number of overtime hours grows, so does the to-do list, which often reaches a length in the very first phase of preparation that would keep you busy for weeks. Clients have questions, partner companies have questions, and then there are the conference attendees who are missing important information before the start or have urgent requests regarding their booking.

Often, it’s not the special cases that eat up your time, but rather the small, routine tasks that consume massive amounts of valuable time. It’s usually clear what needs to be done, but it takes just as much effort to get started, simply because the work isn't enjoyable—and it could all be done much faster.

Converia manages and automates these routine tasks at every stage. This allows organizers to drastically reduce their daily workload. For a three-day conference with five parallel sessions, a conference team can save up to six weeks of preparation time, for example.

2. Is everything going according to plan? Who knows.

There is probably no conference where the team behind it completely ignores success measurement. As a conference organizer, that wouldn't be a good idea anyway, because ultimately, your clients want to see tangible results in the form of figures and reports.

However, it is just as important not to wait until the very end to look at the statistics, but rather to know at any time whether the conference is heading in the right direction.

The key to the solution here is also software. A good dashboard is all you need. A new registration has come in? The number appears on the dashboard. An attendee has paid their registration fee? One less outstanding payment on the dashboard. A reviewer has finished evaluating a paper? The number of pending reviews on the dashboard decreases.

And if the numbers on the dashboard aren't looking so great, you can send a reminder to those still owing payment with just a few clicks.

3. Too many tools spoil the conference

Is your conference planning already mostly digital? Great, because the fewer printed or handwritten lists circulating in your team, the better.

But when everyone in a team uses their own version of an Excel attendee list, things get complicated and, more importantly, confusing. Time for another meeting: Which version is the current one?

Your team's internal principle should instead be: Everyone works in the same place with the same data. Modern conference software handles this quite well. But many tools don't always mean the best of all worlds. Using software from different providers shows a certain level of expertise, sure. After all, you've looked beyond the very first software you used. The problem is that these tools rarely communicate with each other. Interfaces don't exist, and in the end, the data is once again scattered across different systems in various versions, which improves the situation not at all.

Therefore, try to solve as many tasks as possible with a single piece of software. Are there interfaces? Import and export options? What features are included? Can more be added later? Gradually get to know the new software. What is the biggest pain point? That is exactly where you should start. Once that works and you see a noticeable improvement, move on to the next area.

4. Organizing an annual conference = starting from scratch every time

Back to those routine tasks. Many of them pile up for conferences that take place regularly. The structure of the conference doesn't change much, yet for you as the organizer, the work starts all over again every time. Setting up, configuring, making basic settings—this isn't creative work, and it really just eats up time.

And why do something that is already there? With software like Converia, you can use templates for an annual conference. This means: You set up the event in the system only once. In the following year, you simply reuse the settings and parameters from the previous year, which you can copy thanks to the template without having to reconfigure anything yourself.

5. Please, no tax topics!

The fact that conferences with international participation are wonderful things is something organizers occasionally question, at least for a moment. In any case, the question of the correct taxation of tickets is not known for lifting anyone's spirits.

Congresses are quite a bit more complex than small workshops with ten people. That is why not every registration tool is suitable for handling things like the reverse charge procedure. Or for calculating mixed tax rates and displaying them on the invoice. Especially for academic congresses, varying tax rates within a single offering are often standard: while the scientific program remains tax-exempt, catering is subject to 19% tax and the conference proceedings to 7%.

However, you don't necessarily have to do the math yourself and despair, as the congress software can handle that too.

How does the transition work?

Our experience with congress organizers shows that a 180-degree turn is not always necessary and can sometimes be too abrupt, as changing too many processes at once is certainly not the best idea during regular congress operations.

Especially since there is likely at least one skeptic in many teams – the best way to convince them is for the software to prove itself by demonstrating its capabilities step by step.

Some of our clients therefore started small and gradually got to know Converia. The key question here is: What is your biggest pain point? Start there and use software that, for example, handles registration better than your previous tool. Once that works, the software will help you collect submissions for your next congress.

What will remain despite all the relief: the deadlines. But with the right software by your side, they no longer threaten the success of your congresses – and you finally have time again to focus on the big tasks and concentrate on them with a clear conscience. Fortunately, everything else runs itself.