“Our conference organizing committee just decided to switch our physical conference to online. But the conference is supposed to start in three weeks, and none of us have ever even been to a virtual conference, much less put one on! Where do we start??”

n March 2020, a VC Presidential Task Force was formed to provide quick advice to conference organizers suddenly facing the need to move their conference online in light of the social distancing recommendations and global restrictions on travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide concrete advice for events of all sizes. We discuss the tasks required of organizers, specific platforms that can be used and financial considerations. We collect examples of conferences that have gone virtual and lessons learned from their experiences.

As both heavy users of these technologies and researchers responsible for developing them, the VC community is especially well-positioned to offer advice that we hope will be helpful to other groups dealing with the same problems.

VC also hosts a discussion forum for conference organizers to share experiences and discuss issues among themselves. It can be found at VirtualConferences.press