The 20th edition of the European Society for Organ Transplantation’s (ESOT) congress has just been celebrated in-person and online, August 29 to September 1, at the MiCo Convention Centre in Milan (Italy). The biennial ESOT Congress is the largest gathering of the transplant community in Europe, bringing clinicians, surgeons, physicians, nurses, scientists, researchers and patients to review the latest developments in transplantation. AIM Group International, as the appointed PCO, has supported ESOT to organize the in-person event in Milan.
The ESOT Congress 2021 is one of the first major international congresses with a large face-to-face international attendance and for that reason, it recorded a great degree of enthusiasm from the transplant community who have been waiting for the opportunity to reconvene. The four-day event registered 1,200 in-person participants plus 1,400 online attendees, with an astonishingly broad international representation from 74 countries, including European and overseas participants.
Safety was a major concern, and great consideration was taken to ensure the health and reassure all those attending. The ESOT Congress Management Team together with AIM Group International and the MiCo Milano Convention Center prepared a safety and security plan that respected the main criteria for in-person events as set out in Italy’s latest COVID regulations.
The client was really satisfied with the results as declared by Luciano Potena, ESOT president: “On behalf of the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT), we warmly thank our most trusted partner, AIM Group, for their unconditional and most professional support. We couldn’t have hoped for a better partner to support ESOT in hosting the very first hybrid congress during these unprecedented times.”
“Organizing such a major, international congress during the pandemic was a big challenge, with the sanitary situation and national legislation always evolving,” explains Rosangela Quieti, managing director congress dept., AIM Group International. “Despite the difficulties, ESOT was able to guarantee to its members a live, interactive event with plenty of opportunities to meet, chat, train, share ideas, strengthen relationships on site but also be informed, updated and educated online. The hybrid format was a successful choice because the attendance was doubled thanks to both the channels. ESOT registered a very high number of in-person attendees, but in particular the number of countries and regions represented, 74 in total, is impressive and surpassed expectations. It testifies the willingness for face-to-face meetings again and the value physicians put on educational events. We are really glad to be part of this challenging, but rich project, which marks a re-start for international in-person conferences.”
The next edition of ESOT Congress will be in Athens in 2023.
