e-Rum2020: how we turned a physical conference into a successful virtual event

Abstract

The European R Users Meeting 2020 (e-Rum2020) was a conference that was held virtually in June 2020. Originally, e-Rum2020 had been planned as a physical event to be held in Milano. However, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the declaration of a nationwide lockdown induced the Organizing Committee to fully rethink the event, and to turn it into a live virtual conference. In this article, we describe the challenges that we encountered during the organization of e-Rum2020, and how we reacted to them. In doing so, we aim to provide future conference organizers with useful information on how to organize a successful virtual conference, and even to turn a physical conference into a virtual meeting on a relatively short notice.