Portable Sanitation Association International

ASSOCIATIONINSIGHT Portable Sanitation Association International News BIWEEKLY EDITION OCTOBER 28, 2020 Page 19 Continued on page 20 We Are Ready for the Virtual Conference and Trade Show! By Todd Ginter, PSAI's Director of Marketing With just a few weeks to go before the PSAI's first-ever Virtual Educational Conference and Trade Show, we have been working hard to get everything in place for your attendance. Now we can excitedly report that we are ready! We are excited to have you join us because we have amazing educational content, speakers, and fun and games, and we are also preparing a very unique and informative trade show space. I know it has been quite a while since you visited with many of the industry suppliers and this will be your first opportunity to see what they have been up to. Over the last couple of months I have shared articles in this newsletter to help you understand what a virtual conference is and what to expect when you attend one. In those articles, I did the best I could to explain what you will see and to answer the question everyone has, "How does this work?" The most positive aspect of switching to an online format is that the technological capacity was already there; we just needed to jump on board. Virtual conferences were not born out of a need because COVID-19 restrictions kept people from meeting. They were already out there. In fact, attending a virtual conference has been a growing trend and becoming more popular for many years. For any association, including the PSAI, transitioning to a virtual conference wasn't a hard choice. This was not because we knew the technology to transition to a virtual event, it is simply because it is what we had to do. Adjusting to a New Way of Meeting Associations in every industry are well known for their ability to adjust to the needs of their members against whatever type of obstacles that are put in the way. In 2020, that meant not having in-person events but still being able to provide educational opportunities, information, and ways to connect both industry operators with suppliers. Of course we want to have our events in-person, but in the absence of that happening, we are going to do whatever we can to deliver everything our industry members expect from their PSAI membership. You may be asking how the staff of the PSAI became such experts in hosting a virtual conference. Besides doing our due diligence in learning everything that is involved with virtual conferences, we also attended virtual shows this summer to understand not only the logistics, but also what it is like to experience a virtual event. But the best decision we made is not going about this preparation alone. Hosting a Virtual Event Requires All Hands on Deck The PSAI has partnered with professionals who know their way around virtual conferences. The Planner Collective is not only helping the PSAI to organize the virtual platform that is hosting the event, but it is also assisting the exhibitors with their trade show booths.

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