This year’s annual meeting took place from October 19 - 21, 2011 in Milan, Italy, and again it was possible to increase participant numbers as well as introduce new and very well received features.

In October 2,400 delegates and 1,552 industry representatives from 81 countries followed the invitation from president Ciaran Bolger and the local hosts Marco Brayda-Bruno and Claudio Lamartina to attend the EuroSpine congress at the MICo, one of the leading conference venues in Europe. 140 highly specialized companies exhibited and contributed to make this meeting the most important meeting for spine specialists in Europe, if not worldwide. Abstract Submissions again rose compared to last year with a big portion coming from Asian countries. Thanks to the excellent organization of Vincent Arlet and Luca Papavero it was possible to fill two parallel Pre-Meeting Day Courses. This Pre-Meeting Day Course was introduced last year and it seems to be liked and is planned to be maintained.

EuroSpine, the meeting, is under constant development with the aim to meet all the expectations participants may have. Thus, for the first time we introduced the smartphone application, the audience response system (ARS) and the daily conference newspaper ‘Spine Times’ as new means of communication.

The EuroSpine App provided all information about the EuroSpine 2011 Conference directly on smartphones. Information about the EuroSpine Society and its board members, the scientific program and its speakers, the congress venue and the exhibition area as well as the latest news about the conference could be retrieved easily and were always at hand!

An up-to-date information about the latest trends, giving an insight into the society and presenting the conference life as well as some local tips for exploring Milan was provided by ‘Spine Times’, the conference’s daily newspaper available both on-line and printed. It was very popular as all hot off the press issues were gone in no time.

Furthermore, everybody who participated in this year’s survey was treated with a pair of the famous ‘Gallo’ socks. The survey is always of utmost importance to us as it gives us feedback on what to keep doing, what to improve and what to change. Were you one of the 300 who participated and got a pair of those decorative socks?

The programme committee with its chair Ahmet Alanay enriched the scientific programme with lively debate sessions for the first time. The topics stimulated discussions and thinking on areas of controversy but also of consensus. In such interactive sessions the ARS helped to increase the participation to the scientific session, the exchange of the experience and the sense of community. The constant high attendance in the session rooms showed that the programme committee did a very good job. Chapeau!
To continue discussions arising from the debates or other sessions we arranged a congress lounge area in the upper level of the venue with a lot of seating possibilities that also allowed for networking or simply chit-chatting with colleagues and friends.

All in all, we are looking back at a very good meeting that everybody seemed to enjoy!

Our thanks go to our PCO AIM Group International for their commitment in making this meeting a success and members of the various committees who were involved in the organisation of the most important annual meeting.
We also thank all our members and friends of our society who joined us in Milan.

EuroSpine App for smartphones

iphone/ipad: itunes.apple.com/at/app/eurospine/id472089080?mt=8
other smartphones: app.eurospine.org

Daily Conference Newspaper ‘The Spine Times'

www.eurospinemeeting.com/p130000826.html

Conference Survey

conducted during EuroSpine and afterwards online.
Results will be published!