November 3, 2020

GAA's first virtual GOAL conference attracts 800 active participants

The Global Aquaculture Alliance's GOAL 2020 conference was held virtually for the first time this year, with more than 4,000 pre-registered attendees - 800 of whom logged on to the GOAL platform and application to watch the live stream of at least one of 10 sessions.

This year's programme featured 50 speakers from almost 20 countries across 10 sessions on October 5-8.

GAA opened GOAL 2020 to all GAA individual and corporate members, with no registration fee required.

"Though we were disappointed that we had to postpone the in-person event in Tokyo this year, the virtual event spawned opportunities for GOAL and GAA that tend to be limitations with an in-person event," said GAA communications and events manager Steven Hedlund.

"We had about 800 attendees actively participate in (the) virtual event, and we've never had more than 550 attendees at the in-person event. Because we opened up GOAL 2020 to all GAA individual and corporate members and eliminated the registration fee, we were able to expand our membership programme through new memberships and new strategic partnerships with other member-based associations. Additionally, the programme was one of the strongest to date, with 50 speakers, about two-thirds of which spoke at GOAL for the first time. These speakers may not have been available to join us this year had there been an in-person event."

GOAL will return to Tokyo, Japan next year from October 25 to October 28, featuring a "hybrid" experience with a simultaneous in-person and virtual event.

- GAA