GR’s case of good practice – congress for 1,800 participants

GR – Ljubljana Exhibition and Convention Centre (GR) was from 25^th to 29^th June 2017 a place for the 16^th edition of the World Congress in Fetal Medicine, where 1,800 participants from Europe and all over the world, among them leading international experts and young researchers, exchanged the knowledge on Fetal Medicine, specializing in Gynaecology and Obstetrics.

As everyone in the MICE industry knows, no congress’ handling flows uninterrupted towards the desired output. Particularly so, when almost 2,000 attendees are in question, what demands for even more careful and in-depth organization and round-a-clock attentiveness to details and unexpected changes.

As Tina Bizant, Head of Events & Congress Department at the GR told us, the first challenge was to convince the organiser that Ljubljana was a perfect destination to host the congress even though majority of the congress’ editions had been held at coastal cities (including in Slovenian coastal town Portorož 8 years earlier). The bidding was successful due to the support from the Ljubljana Convention Bureau and doc.dr. Nataša Tul Mandić, Ph.D., Head of the Clinical Department of Perinatology at the UKC Ljubljana Gynecology Clinic and member of the Congress’ Organizational Board.

Another challenge for GR was to provide the total local organizational support: total technical equipment and logistics. Besides hosting the plenary session, GR had organized parallel social events as a gala dinner for all participants.

However, the preparation of gala dinner hit two obstacles. Firstly, the dinner was planned to be held in a lovely open space in the city centre, but a bad weather forecast urged the organizer to quickly react according to the plan B and move the gala dinner to the indoor hall. And secondly, the organiser of the Fetal Medicine congress was used to classic arrangement of  gala dinners, so it needed to realize the benefit of the sudden »out of the box« gala dinner concept. But GR succeeded to execute the gala dinner that satisfied the organiser, »we did it together with the Jezeršek team and it was an astonishing completion of the congress and an excellent experience for all participants and for the organiser itself,« says Tina Bizant.

In addition, the GR had to organise an excursion for 400 participants, however, on the day of the departure, the GR was informed that 50 more people applied for the trip. GR had to arrange transfers for 50 more people ad hoc. »Once again we proved our flexibility and ‘saved’ the organisers one more time«, adds Tina Bizant.

The fact that GR hosted this important event impacted also Ljubljana’s position in the world’s map as a prominent congress city, while, at the same time, as noted by doc.dr. Nataša Tul Mandić, Ph.D.,  Head of the Clinical Department of Perinatology at the UKC Ljubljana Gynecology Clinic and member of the Congress’ Organizational Board, the meeting in Ljubljana was “important for the development of Slovenian medicine and Slovenian recognition”.

Successfully executed 16^th World Congress in Fetal Medicine represents a case of the best practice for such a huge and important event. GR’s recent upload of the video depicting the event, stands as an additional good example of the GR’s professionality.