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BARCELONA -- Hybrid conferences, with delegates meeting in person and online, are likely to become the norm, said European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress leaders.

"We are convinced that a hybrid meeting is going to be the new standard for medical meetings, and for the ESC," with society staff gaining expertise in operating virtual meetings in 2020 and 2021, noted ESC's program committee chair Stephan Achenbach, MD, of the University of Erlangen in Germany, during a press conference at the start of the meeting.

He suggested that travel restrictions, work restrictions, and other reasons that prevent in-person attendance can be overcome with online experience. "We learned how to engage an audience online," he said. "However, "there is a great opportunity, of course, to be able to re-visit people in person."

In-person meetings are invaluable in giving doctors a chance to review the best in research with their peers and allowing discussion and interpretation with experts in the field.

And while the venues for the conferences have rotated among a handful of Western European cities -- Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris, and Munich -- Achenbach told 乌鸦传媒 that the society is actively looking eastward for future meetings. "There are several venues in Eastern Europe that are developing large convention centers that will be capable of handling this meeting," he noted.

He declined to identify the exact locations, but said that the society will have to determine if the venues will be large enough for the attendees, and if the infrastructure in those cities can provide the amenities needed, including internet, transportation, and hotel accommodations.

"There are not many cities in Europe that can host an event of this size, where we really need the coordination of the Congress and the infrastructure that the city provides," Achenbach said, adding that the conference is frequently held in Barcelona because the city and the convention center are committed to environmental sustainability.

In 2019, the last time the society met in person in Paris, more than 30,000 people attended the meeting. This year, attendance will be about 17,000 in person and another 6,500 tuning into the sessions online, said Stephan Windecker, MD, of Bern University Hospital in Switzerland and ESC's chair of the clinical program committee.

"Clearly there is a difference in the number of people attending this year's conference when compared with Paris in 2019," said Achenbach. "This is still a hangover effect from the COVID pandemic."

"This is something that we expected, but I see it in a positive way," he added. "To be honest, we were positively surprised by the numbers of people who are registered to be in attendance. This year, we are in a transitioning state, as the society at large tries to get accustomed to live with the pandemic, which I don't think is limited to the ESC Congress."

Windecker noted that other medical conferences that attempted hybrid meetings reported attendance of about 60% of their pre-COVID crowds, and that ESC fell into that same framework. "That was the benchmark that we were looking for at this Congress," he said.

Most registered attendees are from Germany, followed by the U.K. and the U.S., and then Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Romania, and France, he added.

"The scientific program is rich in content," Windecker said, noting that the scientific committee accepted 3,734 abstracts, including 63 late-breaking abstracts, with 37 presentations in hotline sessions. Researchers from the U.S. top the list. About 40 of the presentations are being published simultaneously in major medical journals.

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