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Case study of a national-level academic conference organised in hybrid mode at low cost

Violet M. Harvey, Simon Lee, Bruce Dawson, Sabrina Einecke, Gavin Rowell

TL;DR

In July 2025, the University of Adelaide hosted the Astronomical Society of Australia's Annual Scientific Meeting in a hybrid mode, with options for in-person and online attendance.

Abstract

In July 2025, the University of Adelaide hosted the Astronomical Society of Australia's Annual Scientific Meeting on its North Terrace campus. We ran the conference in a hybrid mode, with options for in-person and online attendance. This report details the procedures that we used to enable the online mode of the conference at minimal cost and minimal inconvenience to the in-person attendees. We discuss our choices of hardware and software and how we integrated these systems together. We summarise our experience of organising a local AV team and the procedures that we set for running the AV in each session. We present statistics of the online attendance numbers and post-conference survey feedback, and discuss the lessons we feel other organisers may particularly be able to learn from.

Case study of a national-level academic conference organised in hybrid mode at low cost

TL;DR

In July 2025, the University of Adelaide hosted the Astronomical Society of Australia's Annual Scientific Meeting in a hybrid mode, with options for in-person and online attendance.

Abstract

In July 2025, the University of Adelaide hosted the Astronomical Society of Australia's Annual Scientific Meeting on its North Terrace campus. We ran the conference in a hybrid mode, with options for in-person and online attendance. This report details the procedures that we used to enable the online mode of the conference at minimal cost and minimal inconvenience to the in-person attendees. We discuss our choices of hardware and software and how we integrated these systems together. We summarise our experience of organising a local AV team and the procedures that we set for running the AV in each session. We present statistics of the online attendance numbers and post-conference survey feedback, and discuss the lessons we feel other organisers may particularly be able to learn from.
Paper Structure (28 sections, 3 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 28 sections, 3 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Objectives
  3. Hardware
  4. Venues and university-provided AV equipment
  5. Equipment that was hired or loaned
  6. Microphone system
  7. Webcams
  8. Equipment that was purchased
  9. Software and web platforms
  10. Zoom
  11. Logi Options+
  12. YouTube
  13. Slack
  14. Indico
  15. Custom tools
  16. ...and 13 more sections

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Flowchart illustrating the hardware AV components and connections. It should be noted that this setup was designed around the equipment already available in each lecture theatre.
  • Figure 2: Left: Count of Zoom participants online across all active Zoom meetings each day. The count of Zoom participants excludes all Adelaide staff and AV volunteers. Right: Count of concurrent YouTube viewers across all active streams each day. Recall that there were a total of 34 online registrants, and that the AGM, Decadal Plan, and Harley Wood Lecture were open to unregistered viewers.
  • Figure 3: Cumulative counts of YouTube analytics across all regular session recordings from each day. Left: Count of views. Right: Count of unique viewers.