Tips to organize a conference: Experiences from DERMACON 2016, Coimbatore

More people are organizing conferences, workshops, and CMEs and creating memorable experiences. Nothing compares to a good conference and the lessons learnt while organizing, the experience and the joy and satisfaction at the end of the conference when everything goes as planned. Organizing is much more hard than we can possibly imagine, but hard work, meticulous planning, choosing the right vendors, a passionate team, and smart financial planning are some factors that are crucial to the success of the conference. To plan a national conference, we need to be prepared for prolonged periods of hard work, financial stress, and roller coaster of emotions. Your social life, free time, or family time takes a back seat for at least 6 months before the conference. There is no escaping that it is a huge responsibility and one that takes up a lot of time, both physically and mentally. For the success of any conference, most important is planning, and as practicing clinicians or academicians, we are faced with the dual role of organizing a conference and juggling with regular work. No matter how much we prepare, we can only hope that everything goes right. We need to minimize risks by planning as much as possible, as early as possible, and then hope for the best. Organizing requires a tremendous amount of forethought, planning, and working on logistics to achieve our vision and goal.