Post 13 of 15

Lufthansa strike

A significant proportion of our delegates reached the conference by plane (around two-thirds). Some delegates had to cancel at the very last minute, as Lufthansa was on strike over the weekend of our conference. This issue affected around 10 delegates. We offered a full refund.

The strike meant some delegates (including presenters) were delayed. Luckily this didn’t affect our schedule. Two of our presenters had to reschedule flights with other companies to make it to the conference on time.

Luckily Munich is a major international airport, served by multiple airlines. This is to keep in mind when performing the feasibility study for your event.

Late registrations and name changes

We did not handle registrations directly, and some name changes and late registrations were not sent to us on time. Some organisations also sent different people to the ones who were signed up for, without alerting us.

This meant that some delegates did not have a name badge waiting for them at registration. Our student helpers dealt with it professionally and we had prepared a station in the cafeteria area to print badges adhoc.

Solar eclipse

Although we knew there would be a solar eclipse on the day of the pre-conference, we did not anticipate the potential consequences on the national grid. Two days prior to the conference, the media reported potential blackouts during the solar eclipse, due to Germany’s reliance on solar power. We sort of prepared a plan B, which luckily we did not have to put into action (emphasis on ‘sort of had a plan…’). The electricity supply was just fine in the end.

Late cancellations and waiting lists for social events

As mentioned above some delegates had to cancel at the last minute. This freed up some spaces for the social events. Some delegates were not sure whether they were booked for the optional social events, as not all organisations sent confirmation to their employees.

We had to generate lists so that delegates could double-check their names. Some cancelled at the last minute, which also freed up spaces. We then put together a waiting list for delegates to sign up for freed up spaces.

Student helpers

7 of our student helpers were assigned to presentation rooms (see this post for more details), and the rest were:

  • Two students assigned to the information desk
    • Help with taxi bookings
    • General information for delegates and sponsors
  • One student organised video recordings
    • Transfer from SD cards to central location
    • SD card formatting
    • Distribution of formatted cards to presentation rooms
    • Collection of SD cards from presentation rooms
  • Two students ran school tours
  • The rest of the students would rotate to allow for breaks

Organisers

Organisers roamed around the conference venue to ensure all was running smoothly. There was a lot of low-level troubleshooting to be done, but nothing worth reporting here. We also presented some sessions.

In the next post I will discuss social events and networking opportunities.

Photo credit: Lufthansa Boeing 747 by Oliver Holzbauer under CC-BY-SA