Table 1 Overview of attendee perspectives

From: Around the hybrid conference world in the COVID-19 era

Location	Position	Conference	Planned mode	Attended mode	Cost (AUD)
Sydney, AU	Staff	ASA; EAS; HVC	Online; Online; Online	Online; GA only; Online	50; 0; 0
Hobart, AU	Staff organizer	ASA	In-person (Tasmania)	In-person (Tasmania)	500
Brisbane, AU	Student	ASA	In-person (Queensland)	In-person (Queensland)	240
Sydney, AU	Student	ASA	Online	Online	50
Brisbane, AU	Student	ASA	In-person (Tasmania)	In-person (Tasmania) + online	4,640^a
Perth, AU	Postdoc	ASA	In-person (Perth)	In-person (Perth)	107^b
Barcelona, ES	Staff	EAS	In-person	In-person	1,528
Garching, DE	Staff	EAS	Online	GA only	0
Amsterdam, NL	Staff	EAS	In-person	Online	1,513
Heidelberg, DE	Staff	EAS	In-person	In-person	2,597
Leiden, NL	Staff organizer	EAS	In-person	In-person	2,063
Green Bank, US	Staff organizer	HVC	In-person	In-person	0
Kelowna, CA	Staff	HVC	In-person	Online	0^c
Green Bank, US	Staff organizer	HVC	In-person	In-person	795
Baltimore, US	Postdoc	HVC	In-person	In-person	795

The table gives a summary of the attendance modes of gathered perspectives covered in this Comment. ‘Location’ indicates the institutional base of the attendee, and ‘Position’ gives whether they are student, postdoc or staff (noting that staff in this case captures a broad range of functional roles). In two EAS cases, attendees switched from ‘online’ to ‘GA only’ attendance, which meant signing up to attend the EAS General Assembly (GA) only, due to the limited provision of content via online attendance. In one ASA case (^a), COVID isolation meant switching from in-person to online attendance and staying an extra week in Tasmania, which raised the costs from 2,800 Australian dollars (AUD) to over 4,600 AUD. In another ASA case (^b), registration was waived, which significantly reduced the cost of attending in person. In one HVC case (^c), transition from in-person to online attendance reduced costs from an anticipated approximately 4,000 AUD to 50–1,900 AUD, depending on as-yet unknown refund of flight costs after airline-caused cancellation. Thus for HVC, our in-person perspectives cover relatively local attendance and so the costs are indicative only of registration fee (including meals and accommodation at Green Bank Observatory) in the absence of additional travel costs. We have not, in this case, provided an estimate of carbon costs associated with travel, but note that costs would be negligible for online attendance, minor for local attendance, significant for domestic attendance and major for international attendance, depending on the mode of transport¹⁴. Costs in other currencies were converted to their AUD equivalent as of 27 June 2022 for ease of comparison.

Back to article page

Table 1 Overview of attendee perspectives

Search

Quick links