Meeting the challenges in ICOE growth
The International Conference on Ocean Energy (ICOE) has steadily grown through its past four offerings and continues to do so for 2014. The first sign was the 300 abstracts competing for 80 spots! It has taken time, but we have slotted some into existing sessions and added some new poster sections and finally the patient abstract authors are hearing back from us! The second sign of growth is the interest in the tradeshow/exhibition which looks likely to exceed the original plan, forcing the poster presentations into a salon near the plenaries, and creating space to allow up to two more aisles of booths.
Registrations have started and hotels and flights are being booked. Some of the early birds are realizing that the ICOE Mobile App is live, offering opportunities to build delegate and company profiles and to plan Business to Business approaches for the week. The App and the website are updated regularly and are profiling this year’s sponsors, while inviting others to join – 2014’s sponsors are also setting a new record!
As hosts for 2014, one of our tasks is to find the host for the 6th offering in 2016. And, that is becoming a challenge because hosts need to plan for a 1000 delegate, 100 exhibitor event! But, I am sure that challenge will be met and delegates in November will have a clear invitation for ICOE2016?!