What do you do when a terrorist warning is issued the day before the congress you are planning is due to start? Larna Jackson, Business Owner of Event Options, shares her experience of just how she and her team navigated this unexpected challenge.
Event: 22nd annual SA Heart® Congress
Dates: 27-30 October 2022
Venue: Sandton Convention Centre
Client: SA Heart® Association
Event organiser: Event Options
Key team members:
- Larna Jackson, Business Owner
- Sue McGuinness, Project Director
- Zinnia Peens, Systems Manager
Wednesday, 26 October: Security threat is announced
“It is said that when in a crisis, tell the truth and tell it fast.”
We were aware of the media announcements on Wednesday, 26 October and immediately began consultations with the management at the Sandton Convention Centre (SCC). Our very first point of action was to let the suppliers know that we were still going ahead with the event, until further notice, but that we were investigating other options. (This decision was influenced by the fact that we had already started to load in and start build up preparations.)
An email was also distributed to our entire attendee database on Wednesday evening to acknowledge that we had heard of the threat, high level meetings were going to take place on Thursday, and that further communication would follow.
Thursday morning, 27 October: Unpacking the options
The pre-congress workshops at Discovery Place on 27 October went ahead, as scheduled.
On this same day, our team discussed three options and how we would be able to quickly implement these, planning the various scenarios, cost implications and operations plans.
The options were:
- Move to hybrid
- Move event entirely to virtual
- Postpone to another date
After security meetings, the SCC management team confirmed that they would not be closing the venue. They shared that they would implement of series of additional, simultaneous precautions, including the deployment of special security units in Sandton and non-invasive searches of all people entering the building (both physical and with a metal detector). This provided the basis for our immediate next steps.
Thursday 13h00, 27 October: Making the decision
The Board and Risk Audit Committee within SA Heart convened an urgent meeting to discuss the options available to us. The following plan was adopted:
- Move the event to a hybrid platform
- Give all delegates the option to select attendance in-person or virtually
- Prepare an email to explain the multiple steps that the venue, together with the South African Police Services, had undertaken to increase security to ensure the safety of all onsite
- Extensive discussions were had on both evacuation plans and how to lock-down and secure the building if the need arose
- Contact was made with our exhibitors and partners to explain the situation personally, where possible
- All speakers were advised that they had an online option for if they were not comfortable to attend in person
- Update our social media posts that the event would continue with a hybrid option
- Request that in-person delegates sign a disclaimer when they collected their badge
- Ensured that the committee would be available on a 24/7 basis
Thursday evening, 27 October: Creating a virtual congress in a few hours
Event Options has been working with EventsCase, an all-in-one virtual platform, since 2020 and has an active license. During lockdown we moved our business to virtual events, so setting up a functional, easy-to-use platform within a few hours was made easy because of our recent experience. We were able to offer the congress a secure, access-controlled virtual platform that offered attendee engagement features together with detailed attendee reports for CPD points.
“We needed to build an entirely different web portal… in less than half a day to completely change the format of the congress.”
This is not to underplay the extent of work involved. We needed to build an entirely different web portal to allow virtual participation in each lecture hall for over 600 potential delegates. Pulling through hundreds of lectures with videos, transferring existing pre-recordings through to the new portal, creating new individual feeds linked to live on-site HD cameras, creating user-specific log in permissions with passwords and payment verification, notifying all registered participants with the updated format and tracking all participants online were just some of the activities that were designed in less than half a day to completely change the format of the congress.
We were also fortunate that our core business is RSVP and delegate administration, which meant sending updates to faculty and regular communication to attendees was fluid and did not need to be outsourced.
In addition to switching to a hybrid event format in this short time frame, we also needed to assist with flight rerouting, hotel bookings, security upgrades and logistics. I’m proud to say that my team did this without rest or complaint, and were able to ensure that each and every participant was informed, assured, comforted, connected, invigorated and motivated to attend through whatever medium necessary.
“A strength we are most proud of is our agility. We were able to change our staff compliment to bring in the right people with the right skills to manage the technical elements.”
A strength we are most proud of is our agility. We were able to change our staff compliment to bring in the right people with the right skills to manage the technical elements. Our tech AV partner, Keystone Productions, quickly adjusted their plans to accommodate the hybrid element and the SCC increased our internet bandwidth to match the demand now required for connecting with incoming speakers and streaming out to our platform.
Friday to Sunday, 28-30 October: A successful congress is held
The congress officially started on 28 October, as originally planned. It went off smoothly, across both formats, and was very well received.
Blanche Cupido, President of SA Heart®, wrote:
“This weekend has by far proven to be the hardest and simultaneously the most rewarding.
The US embassy issuing a terrorist alert of Wednesday afternoon sent the entire country into disarray. Within 2 hours the UK cancelled flights and a number of our international speakers were left stranded at airports or with cancelled flights.
Though this was expected to be one of our biggest congresses, our delegates now feared safety, and Larna Jackson and her team pulled off a miracle by creating a functional (and beautiful I may add) virtual platform within hours.
“Larna Jackson and her team pulled off a miracle by creating a functional (and beautiful I may add) virtual platform within hours.”
The expertise of Sue McGuinness was seen in full force – Sue I can only say thank you.
Both delegates and industry partners – thank you for your patience, encouragement and support.
So was the congress a success – I would say YES! Some of you came in person, some of you were virtual. All of you displayed your commitment to the SA Heart Association and our Cardiovascular community.
Thank you – your commitment to improving patient care and cardiovascular health in South Africa is commendable. This week showed just how tenacious we can be in the face of adversity – more of that please!”
Photos: Dave Hahn Photography
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