Conference: Maintaining focus

As we continue to put lockdown behind us, who better to turn to than the BCLA to see how conferences of the future might be run? The recent BCLA Focus Hybrid Conference and Exhibition offered the choice for delegates to either attend a live event in-person at the Vox Conference centre in Birmingham, or to live stream the main lectures and discussions online from their own home, whether in the UK or overseas.

The BCLA annual conference has long been seen as an important international conference and the advent of live streaming opened up the event for delegates from all around the world and also allowed overseas authorities in contact lens science, such as US-based Professors Pat Caroline and Karen DeLoss. Nick Howard hosted the live stream to obtain their expertise via a live link (figure 1).