CongressMed rallies an enthusiastic opinion leader, Melbourne Convention Bureau and city stakeholders to build a strong turnout at CoBRA’s debut
When CongressMed, a Tel Aviv-based company specialising in the development and enhancement of medical education through concept congresses, decided to debut its World Congress on Controversies in Breast Cancer (CoBRA) in the Australian city of Melbourne last year, it set a humble target of 450 participants.
Nisan Bartov, COO at CongressMed and a Client Advisory Board member of BestCities Global Alliance, told TTGassociations that an attendance of more than 500 delegates would have been “considered a huge success”.
Bartov explained: “We perceived hosting a congress in Australia, a country so far away for everyone else except the Australians, would mean not many international delegates in attendance. Also, the local audience is relatively small when compared with, for example, Europe.”
Understanding that the congress’ success depended on a strong engagement of the local audience, CongressMed made it part of its planning strategy to court the Australian community.
To do this, CongressMed roped in Bruce Mann, a renowned figure in the field of breast cancer. He is the director of Breast Cancer Services for the Royal Melbourne and Royal Women’s Hospitals, a professor of surgery at the University of Melbourne, the director of advanced surgical training at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and a Club Melbourne Ambassador with the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
“We were very fortunate to have a very good local chairperson in professor Mann, who literally made the entire community in Australia aware of our congress,” remarked Bartov.
To engage the Australian medical community, CongressMed conducted an Industry Meeting 15 months before CoBRA. It focused on the opportunities the local industry could gain from CoBRA, such as being able to demonstrate their company’s leadership and innovation in the field, stimulate and discuss new research, reach key opinion leaders and raise their company’s visibility in the field, encourage and promote education and public awareness, etc.
“We explained the concept of the congress to the local pharmaceutical industry and they liked the idea. The meeting was crucial, as immediately afterwards we received soft commitments from Roche and Novartis (Swiss healthcare firms) that they would support the congress with financial investment,” he said.
Besides benefiting from Mann’s extensive local network and enthusiastic support for the brand new congress, CongressMed also formed a close partnership with the Melbourne Convention Bureau (MCB) for delegate boosting efforts.
According to Bartov, without a commitment from MCB and city stakeholders to support CoBRA, the project would not have taken off.
“The bureau helped us to promote the congress on social media, newsletters and (other online channels),” said Bartov.
The collaborative delegate boosting efforts paid off and the inaugural World Congress on Controversies in Breast Cancer drew more than 700 participants from 40 different countries worldwide, with 69 per cent coming from within Australia.
“Three years ago when I attended AIME for the first time at the invite of MCB, I didn’t think we would ever bring a congress to Australia. Now, I’ve made my fourth trip Down Under in three years and we are organising our second congress in Melbourne,” he said.
“Our success with (CoBRA in) Melbourne put us on the world map. Other destinations (BestCities partners and others) are taking us more seriously and inviting us to consider their cities.
“Our cooperation with other BestCities partners has made us consider a closer (working relation) with the alliance and create concrete plans to initiate new congresses and legacy programmes together,” he added.
Event World Congress on Controversies in Breast Cancer
Organiser CongressMed
Date October 22-24, 2015
Venue Pullman Melbourne On The Park hotel
Number of attendees More than 700 from 40 countries
Challenges With Australia’s distance from most parts of the world, the organisers were worried that international attendance would be affected.
