Our work at the WCA 2021 congress began 9 years ago in 2012 when Prague was chosen in Buenos Aires at WCA 2012 as the venue for WCA 2020.

In cooperation with the Czech societies of anesthesiology, resuscitation, and intensive care medicine and the World Federation of Anesthesiologists was chosen PVA Letňany as congress venue, which was then changed and the congress venue became newly built O2 Universum congress space.

At that time, no one knew that this congress would be hit by the Covid pandemic – 19. The congress was first moved from 2020 to 2021. Then it was decided on its hybrid form and the last was the decision on the overall virtual form. This ensured the safety of all participants and also its access to people from all over the world.

The biggest advantage was to have a good virtual congress platform and connect it with other programs so that participants can enjoy a rich scientific program with workshops, PBLD, e-Posters, and Meet the Experts while meeting friends and colleagues.

Due to the change in the format of the event, it was necessary to change the marketing strategy. As part of the promotion, regular communication on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn) was used, and regular mailing campaigns were set up. In cooperation with the speakers, video invitations called Talking Heads were recorded and edited. There has also been cooperation with other anaesthesiology congresses.

The technical support of the event was at the O2 Universum, where a 24-member team from GI and another team of technicians took care of the smooth running of the congress.

Almost 7,000 participants from more than 130 countries registered for the congress. Based on the positive feedback, we can say that the 17th World Congress of Anaesthesiology was successful.