Build an Onsite Health and Safety Strategy

While every association has pivoted in numerous ways since the start of the pandemic, there’s probably no internal staff team that has faced more uncertainty than the meetings department. And changes keep coming, as they plan for the return of safe in-person events.

In addition to adhering to shifting health and safety rules, association meeting pros will have other considerations to keep in mind as they craft their event’s safety plan. Among them: local gathering restrictions, along with COVID-19 vaccine and testing requirements.

Lean on Partners

According to Tim Turner, a certified COVID-19 compliance officer and executive producer at Freeman, an events production company, associations should turn to their venues and host location’s convention and visitors bureau to determine the safest way to hold face-to-face meetings.

“If you are in, for example, Texas, it’s far different than if you were up north here in Chicago,” Turner said. “Have those conversations with the convention center and the hotel to find out what the rules of the road are in that particular city, because they have a handle on it, obviously, much better than anyone coming from another city or state.”

Karen Groppe, senior director of strategic communications at HIMSS, a medical association, said that local Las Vegas partners were essential to its August HIMSS21 Global Conference going well. “Having those partners, they knew of our safety plan,” Groppe said. “The more key stakeholders who know about your plan and the messaging, the better.”

Vaccines and Testing

Many organizations are also adding vaccine or testing requirements for attendees. Both require some logistical forethought.

For organizations that know before registrations opens that they will have a vaccine requirement, it is easier to provide information to attendees from the start and allow them to comply during the registration process. And for groups that decide to require vaccinations after registration opens, Groppe said it’s important to communicate that updated information frequently and on as many channels as possible.

For example, Groppe’s team planned for a scenario where they had a COVID-19 outbreak at the conference.

“We looked at what could happen with that and how we would convey it,” she said. “We had to figure out what the messaging would look like, how it would be distributed, how we would communicate to attendees.”

In addition, keep in mind that your safety protocols and communication efforts aren’t necessarily finished when the meeting wraps up. Attendees should be asked to report if they test positive for COVID-19 within 14 days of the event. Turner noted that organizations can even ask about testing in post-conference surveys sent during that two-week window.

If you do have attendees who test positive, contact tracing and emails to those who may have been exposed may be needed. For HIMSS, “we had close to 20,000 people with us, and we had six reported cases,” Groppe said. Five of those cases were self-reported, and one was from the onsite tester. HIMSS communicated those results to attendees through its conference website.

No matter what safety plan associations decide on, the key is to work together to create the safest gathering possible.

“Associations are used to—when you have your annual conference—staff executes everything and anything,” Groppe said. “This year, we had a lot of trusted partners with us, executing key parts of our event, so that was a high trust level. Pick the right partners.”