The Event:

The British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) Annual Congress took place at P&J Live from 21st to 24th September 2021, with the theme of the conference focussed on ‘Tackling Infection’.

About:

BOA is the Surgical Specialty Association for Trauma and Orthopaedics in the UK, providing national leadership and charitable endeavours through the care of patients, support of surgeons, and the ability to transform lives. The annual congress of BOA was one of the first large-scale conferences to take place at the venue following an 18-month hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic. As one of the UK’s biggest medical conferences, this provided P&J Live with the opportunity to showcase the entire venue, with almost all of the conference, meetings, exhibition spaces, and restaurants being utilised over four days.

Since P&J Live is extremely versatile, it allowed the BOA event organisers to configure the venue to their desired specifications to make the best and most innovative use of space for their individual requirements.

The four-day medical conference saw delegates from all over the UK attend various sessions with industry professionals who spoke of their experience in the medical industry; The British Orthopaedic Association has over 5,000 members within the UK & Ireland, made up of Consultants, Staff and Associate specialist grades and trainees.

Number of delegates:

P&J Live hosted 2,000 delegates during the BOA Annual Congress, with conference sessions, exhibitions, and catering encompassed within the event. The venue’s dedicated event team looked after every detail of the conference by maximising our venue’s facilities to ensure a successful conference over any number of days.

Venue set up:

The exhibition and catering took place in our 4,000m² hall, located right in front of the main entrance and registration area, making it the core central space for delegates to meet and network. This was the key meeting up area, allowing delegates to network with exhibitors. The venue’s large concourse area welcomed delegates to the conference with a cloakroom and the Mill Coffee Shop all located within this space. The main session space was also located on the ground floor, next to the catering and exhibition halls, making it extremely easy for delegates to move between the two areas.

All other sessions were located on the first floor which is home to the Baker Hughes Conference Hub, one floor, along the same corridor, connected by stairs, escalators and lifts. No paper was used as we had digital signage directing and instructing delegates on each session. The conference suites have acoustic partitions and front-line technology allowing for great flexibility during the conference. Having all additional sessions on the same floor allowed delegates to move freely between the different sessions. The View is also located on the first floor with views over the Piazza outside P&J Live, the spacious area was great for the end of conference Presidential Dinner with organisers and delegates. Our in-house catering team of professional chefs at P&J Live are skilled in creating innovative menus for delegates. We are proud to use locally sourced products from Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire to minimise food miles; our talented and experienced chefs then created fresh meals of the highest quality for the delegates over the four-day conference.

With this being one of the first large-scale conferences to take place at P&J Live after re-opening due to the pandemic, the team had to adapt to the regulations and make sure that delegates that could not attend would still be able to take part. P&J Live has an AV network on-site, with 15 dedicated AV technicians who worked to deliver this event. Every conference room was streamed interfacing with BOA’s streaming company to make remote viewing of the conference sessions possible. The Plenary featured a projection blended backdrop with a media server creating an animated backdrop for the presenters’ presentations and live video feed from our in-house cameras. On either side of the stage were two 6m wide screens to further enhance the viewing of the presented material. All the main conference suites (Hall C, CS 1A, 1B, 1C, CS 2A & 2B) had matching colour changing audience wash, stage washing and ceiling feature creating an atmospheric and rich audio-visual experience. Each speaker was able to visit the speaker’s preview room check and drop off their presentation with the technician in this room; this allows the presenter to amend their presentation if needed and know that that final version will be waiting for them in the conference suite that they are presenting in. Our dedicated in-house team managed and built the exhibition alongside the BOA team; for exhibitions and conferences, we have a stock of in-house shell schemes to support clients. The venue was also branded with BOA dedicated vinyl graphics throughout the venue, including entrance signage, escalator vinyl and digital signage, with all sourcing, installation and removal managed by our team.

In line with P&J Live sustainability initiatives, all equipment used during BOA meets the most energy efficient standards by using LED technology for all lighting and laser projectors. BOA’s event organisers were impressed with the venue’s overall commitment to sustainability and ability to power P&J Live, plus the two onsite hotels, via the onsite Energy Centre. Powered by Aberdeen’s food and garden waste, this in turn provided heating, cooling and energy during the Annual Congress. Where possible, delegates were able to walk between the venue and Aberdeen International Airport, which is just minutes away. These sustainability efforts contributed toward the reduction of the event’s overall carbon footprint.

Why did you choose P&J Live?

P&J Live is a fantastic event space and was an excellent fit for our event which offered flexibility for planning and logistics (which as it turned out was invaluable given the uncertain environment, we have had to work in with COVID).

In comparison to other venues, you have used (for this event or something similar) the service provided by the staff at P&J Live, including during booking, planning and delivery of my event, was…?

Of a much higher standard than other venues, I have worked with other venues and there is always one or two team members that are amazing but P&J it seems the whole team were!

In comparison to other event venues, the quality of P&J Live as an event complex is...?

Far superior to other event venues I have used, P&J Live has the best layout and is the most flexible.

Would you consider booking your event with P&J Live again next time?

Definitely would consider for future years.

Is there anything that particularly stood out during your time at P&J Live? / Other comments

The whole P&J Live team worked together to make what was essentially a really difficult event to deliver under pretty challenging circumstances a great success and it was an absolute pleasure to work with every one of them.