In early 2020, the AIHA University education team anticipated traveling to Atlanta for this year’s AIHce EXP. After almost a year of working closely with both the Conference Program Committee and the Continuing Education Committee, the team counted on seeing the program come to life, and on meeting with the OHS professionals it served, including AIHA volunteers.

Then, a global pandemic struck. As March ended, there was no doubt that, for the health and safety of AIHce EXP attendees, AIHA could not host the conference in person.

Within two months, AIHA staff transformed the entire conference, updating registrations, renegotiating contracts, confirming speaker availability and tech capabilities from home, pre-recording sessions, and more. Though it seemed like a whirlwind, we were confident that the effort our staff, speakers, and volunteers put into converting AIHce EXP into an all-virtual event would meet the expectations and needs of our attendees.

But, would they come?

As it turned out, over 2,000 OHS professionals joined us online for Virtual AIHce EXP, taking part in education sessions, professional development courses, exhibitor learning pavilions, and lunch and learn sessions with our sponsor partners.

Changing so suddenly to the new format brought difficulties. Monday started smoothly with AIHA’s brand refresh reveal and an inspiring opening keynote presentation from René Rodriguez. But by mid-afternoon, technical difficulties made it apparent that we needed to cancel sessions for the rest of the day.

At the time, there was nothing we could do but make it right with our attendees by offering rebroadcasts of the entire day’s sessions over two additional dates and the early delivery of OnDemand recordings after the conference. Moving forward, we are carefully assessing ways to ensure our technical setup is prepared for anything.

Never before had we offered so much online content during AIHce EXP. The conference’s new virtual environment offered attendees networking opportunities like professional and student posters, the Virtual Expo, Zoom networking chats, and the AIHF Virtual Fun Run. Our online classroom is designed only to deliver education sessions, while information regarding other activities was housed via our website, our exhibitor directory, and Zoom. At future virtual conferences, providing attendees with better guidance on how to navigate the various options is a must.

Despite our expanded virtual program, however, we had to cancel about two-thirds of our education sessions and almost 70 percent of our professional development courses (PDCs), due to limitations of our technology and staffing. We are exploring options that would allow us to offer a more robust and interactive experience for attendees in the coming years, and are planning for several virtual events this autumn that will include programming we were not able to include as part of AIHce EXP in June.

Although we don’t know what the rest of 2020 will bring, we are already starting to plan for next year. One thing is certain: AIHce EXP 2021 in Dallas, Texas, will have a robust virtual program.

We are taking our lessons learned in June into account and looking at exciting ways to improve our attendee experience, both in-person and online. What would you like to see at next year’s conference? We’d love to hear from you!