The first step in organizing a conference is finding a date and a location. In our case, we used the ZEMOS building at the beginning of August since it provides a big seminar room with a coffee bar in the entrance area and enough space to host a poster session. Sponsors needed to be found – they can be from industry or academia and should be associated with the conference topic. So, we had different spectroscopy companies, computational chemistry companies and RESOLV as the main sponsors.
After securing the key parameters, a program had to be planned which balanced nicely between scientific input and time for networking. Asking and answering the questions: How many talks can be held during the conference and how long should they be? How many people are estimated to participate? For the scientific contributions, some researchers were specifically invited to talk about their research and many more could register to talk or present a poster.
But besides the scientific program, a social program needed to be planned. We tried to combine these two things by having a food truck during the poster session, so that people can enjoy dinner while talking about the posters. This led to a rather long poster session with lots of scientific and non-scientific discussions. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Vibration Circular Dichroism (VCD) Spectroscopy, a special session was held during the conference dinner. An excursion concluded social program. We thought it would be nice to show some of the heritage of the Ruhr area, so we went to Zeche Zollverein or the German mining museum. Here, we encountered a problem with the internationality of the group. We needed English tours of the two sights but one of them did not offer it during the summer holidays. So, two of my colleagues took over translating the tour.
One important part of conferences are food and coffee breaks. For lunch we went to the mensa with everyone as it seemed to be one of the easiest and fastest options. Here, we were again facing a language barrier that we overcame with a translated menu and lots of communication from our side. Providing coffee was more challenging. After having received different offers, it turned out that ordering coffee is quite expensive. Therefore, we bought a nine-liter coffee machine and took turns making coffee on our own. We added some tea, cold drinks and snacks every day, so that everybody had something to enjoy.
Another section of the main event included flash talks for the poster session. Here, every poster presenter had the opportunity to tease their poster with one slide in two minutes. The other sessions were chaired by professors but for this session a colleague and I were chairing. It was very fast paste and more things than I would have thought of needed to be considered.
First, we had to make sure that everyone was in the right order to ensure a smooth and fast change of the speakers. We gathered all the slides in advance and merged them in one presentation. Some formats did not match so that some graphics got lost in the process and we had to fix the slides in one of the coffee breaks. The pronunciation of international names posed another challenge to us. As we did not want to upset anyone by pronouncing their names wrong, we ended up calling them by their poster numbers. Lastly, keeping track of time. Two minutes are very short, and everybody needed to be well prepared to keep the time. In the end, we managed to keep everybody on time and have all participants vote for the best flash talk presentation. This award was given out with the other two poster prizes.
In comparison to other conferences that I attended, it was great fun but also a little bit more stressful. During the weeks before the conference, many small tasks had to be completed to ensure a smooth conference. Nevertheless, a few details had to be (re)organized on the spot. But overall, I gained many insights into organizing a conference and feel more appreciation for everyone who organizes a conference.
