How to build a conference program

Multiply out the frame and compare it with the number of accepted oral presentations. If the slots are fewer than the talks, no arrangement will fit — you need another room, another session per day or shorter talks.

1. 1

   Fix the frame

   Days, the daily hours, the rooms you have, and the session length. These rarely change once the venue is booked, so everything else hangs from them.

2. 2

   Decide the talk length

   Divide the session by the number of talks, and include questions: six talks of 12 minutes plus 3 for questions fill a 90-minute session exactly.

3. 3

   Place the fixed items

   Keynotes, plenaries, breaks and the poster session go in first. They set the rhythm of each day and take room time the parallel sessions cannot use.

4. 4

   Group accepted orals by track

   Build each session around one theme so the audience that comes for the first talk stays for the last. Tracks from the call for abstracts are the natural grouping.

5. 5

   Give posters their own session

   Poster sessions work best next to breaks, when attendees are already moving. Keep posters out of timed talk sessions.

6. 6

   Check for clashes

   No room holds two sessions at once, and no presenting author is due in two overlapping sessions. Check session chairs the same way.

7. 7

   Place what is left

   List every accepted presentation that is still unscheduled. Each one is either placed or a decision for the committee — never quietly dropped.

8. 8

   Publish, then handle changes one at a time

   Publish once the clashes are resolved. After that, a withdrawal leaves a gap to fill rather than a reason to reshuffle the day.

Room clashes are visible on any grid. Author clashes are not: a senior author on five accepted papers can easily be scheduled to present in two rooms at 10:30. Check presenting authors specifically, and match them by name and email address rather than by the way the name was typed on each submission.

Give every session a chair who is not presenting in it, and check chairs for clashes the same way as presenters. Tell chairs the talk length and the order before the day.

After the program is published, change as little as possible. When a talk is withdrawn, leave the gap or extend the discussion rather than move other talks: attendees have already planned around the published times.

A poster session needs a room with boards and a time when presenters stand by their posters. Tell poster presenters the session time in the decision, so they can plan to be there.

The program builder takes the frame — tracks from your call, up to 50 rooms, up to 14 days, daily hours, 60- or 90-minute sessions and 1 to 12 talks per session — and the accepted presentations from peer review. AI or a fixed rule proposes sessions; every proposal is checked for room clashes, presenting-author clashes, day windows and session type before you can apply it, and presentations that did not fit are listed. Applying writes sessions into your event’s agenda, which your website, app and session check-in already use. See conference program software.