Meeting FAQs

ESA generally selects the city where the Annual Meeting will be held five years in advance. Meetings must be planned this far in advance due to the limited supply of cities that meet all our selection requirements. There is competing demand from many other organizations which are also looking for cities that can accommodate their meetings. 

The Meetings Committee is charged with overseeing the site selection process. To begin the site selection process, the Committee compiles a list of candidate cities after considering many factors: meeting attendance trends, convention center size, hotel options, a city’s reputation, and feedback from past meeting surveys. Prior to September 13, 2023, all states that were on the California travel ban list were avoided. On September 13, 2023, California’s Senate Bill 447, also known as the BRIDGE Project, officially repeals the 2016 law that prohibited the state from sponsoring travel to states with laws in place that discriminate “on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

Candidate cities are sent a request for proposals (RFP) that describe the Society’s logistical needs and requested meeting dates. Cities that are interested then respond by submitting a proposal to ESA to host the meeting. These proposals include a breakdown of the costs of renting the convention center space and the rates for booking a hotel block for attendees. Each city’s highest priority is to attract meetings that will boost local business revenue for hotels, restaurants, retail, museums, and other local attractions. There is usually a tradeoff between the number of hotel nights an organization commits to booking and the overall meeting space package that the city is willing to offer (both volume of space and rates for using it). ESA meetings have a high need for concurrent session room space relative to other meetings with similarly sized hotel commitments due to the large number of oral sessions.

After reviewing the proposals, the Meetings Committee narrows the list of candidate cities, starting with assessing the cost of renting the convention center and the hotel room rates. ESA prioritizes keeping the meeting affordable for attendees, especially students.

Location is important when you think about the ease of getting to the destination. It is important to have good airline options to help keep the travel cost in line and to give people the opportunity to take direct flights if they choose. For example, while we would all enjoy holding a conference in Hawaii the cost of the location is problematic. Airfare from the east coast is currently averaging $1,000. Locations that are thought of as traditional tourist destinations usually have a higher cost associated with them because the demand usually outweighs the supply. For this reason, hotel and food costs are higher. We want to select a city that has a food scene that with various price points to meet our attendees’ needs, with diverse options that can also serve those with dietary restrictions.

Another factor to consider in selecting a location is the time of year that you plan on visiting. Every city has a peak season and a low season. For example, the peak season for Florida is the winter months when a large majority of the country is experiencing cold temperatures, and their temperatures are warmer. The low season for them is summer due to the high temperatures and humidity along with being during hurricane season.  Low season in a city is when you will receive the best value on sleeping rooms and convention center rentals.  

When considering a city for a conference it is important to have a variety of hotel options within close proximity to the conference center. These options should be at multiple different price points to meet the budget needs of all of your attendees. These hotel options should also be different brands, styles and have a variety of amenities.  By providing these different options you are able to give your attendees a better overall experience by having diverse options for them to choose from.  When possible, we also look into the options of using dorm rooms for students to help keep the cost down. Sometimes this is not possible due to the school schedule at the university or the distance of the campus from the convention center.

Characteristics the Committee considers as it narrows the list to the top three candidate cities include these variables:

• Dates the site is available
• The size of the convention center and the layout of the available space
• A variety of hotel options and room rate price points
• Contract terms, such as hotel block attrition penalties, cancellation terms, social responsibility, concessions, rebates, and incentives
• City’s reputation and attractiveness as a destination
• Inclusivity
• Crime and safety
• Transportation to the city: airport size, availability/prices of flights, driving distance for attendees
• Transportation in the city: walkability, public transportation options
• Variety of restaurant options/location/price points near the convention center
• Weather, especially potential for disruptive weather
• The Human Rates Campaign Municipal Equality Index

Next, the ESA Executive Director and the Director of Meetings visit the top three candidate cities. They meet with convention center and convention visitor’s bureau staff, tour the meeting space, visit hotels that would be in the block, and see some of the local sights that could be of interest to attendees. After completing the site visits, the Meetings Committee makes a recommendation to the Governing Board for specific future meeting sites..

ESA works hard to negotiate the best, least-expensive hotel rates possible. By staying in the housing block, you are helping to support the Annual Meeting in the current year and also in future years. When you stay in the official hotel block, you are staying at a hotel property that ESA personally inspected and vetted for appropriate and adequate levels of quality of accommodations, level of service, safety, and security. As a requirement to use a city’s convention center, ESA signs a contract that states a certain number of hotel rooms will be used by attendees to meet their revenue goals. To be able to reserve enough space for the ESA convention, we guarantee the booking and use of thousands of hotel room nights at contracted hotels. If we fail to use those rooms, ESA will incur financial penalties. If ESA convention attendees’ book outside the official ESA hotel block, they are hindering our ability to meet the minimum number of rooms booked as required by our contracts.

While we can understand the immediate attractiveness of an online deal for accommodations outside of the room block, ESA would like attendees to understand the long-term repercussions to the future of the Annual Meeting caused by choosing to not to stay within the block. Incurring the costs of failing to meet room block commitments will mean increased registration prices for attendees in the future and could mean cities will be unwilling to work with us to host our convention in years to come.

Site selection plays a role in helping ESA to reduce our environmental impact. We look at how convention centers, hotels, and cites manage their sustainability programs. Portland (Oregon), Salt Lake City, and Montreal are leaders on convention center sustainability. The convention centers in these cities limit the use of plastic and paper, have a recycling program in place, and offer farm-to-table food and beverage options. Some centers have rooftop gardens, beehives, and compostable tableware. ESA encourages members to use reusable mugs and water bottles to further reduce waste. We try to select cities with high walkability scores and robust public transportation options. Hotels are selected that are easily walkable from the convention center.

ESA has been systematically reducing the paper needed at the Annual Meeting for the past 15 years. Digital abstracts have replaced print abstract books. Paper ads that were stuffed into each tote bag were phased out over a decade ago. ESA is adding more content to the mobile app each year. The pocket guide was introduced several years ago as an alternative that attendees can use with the app. Unlike the full-size program, the pocket guide has a smaller environmental footprint because it uses far less paper and it is printed and delivered locally. The full-size printed program was phased out in 2020.

Earth stewardship is a high priority for ESA, and one way in which we demonstrate this value is to mitigate the environmental impact of the Annual Meeting. Since 2015, a local environmental organization has been selected to receive a contribution from the Environmental Offset Donation program. ESA contributes $5.00 for each registrant attending the Annual Meeting. The local host nominates a local organization to receive the funding that is approved by the Governing Board.

Childcare is provided by a licensed, bonded, and insured childcare company, Kiddie Corp. ESA has been partnering with Kiddie Corp for many years to provide an on-site childcare program for our attendees. The program is open for children ages six months to 12 years.

ESA has offered childcare during annual meetings since 1997, in response to a recommendation made in the first Women and Minorities in Ecology report (WAMIE I, 1993). WAMIE II (2006) further recommended that childcare should always be located at the meeting venue and should provide a consistently high quality of service. Location and quality had previously varied from meeting-to-meeting when different local providers were used. To address these concerns, ESA has contracted with Kiddie Corp to provide childcare at recent Annual Meetings. Kiddie Corp provides a consistent, high-quality service at a predictable price and is used by many of our peer societies. Childcare needs include labor, training, equipment (cribs and high chairs), and liability insurance. Kiddie Corp provides all of these services as part of its agreement with ESA.

ESA subsidizes 60% of the overall cost for the service to try to make the cost accessible to all attendees. After the subsidy, the hourly cost of using the service is $9.00 an hour per child. The cost to our attendees is in line with our peer societies, many of which also subsidize attendee childcare expenses.

Since 2020, ESA has allocated $10,000 for dependent care grants for members so that they may attend the conference. This flexible support provides funds that may be used in a variety of ways to best support caregiver participation at the conference. ESA also offers subsidized on-site childcare.

Additionally, parents are always welcome to bring their children with them to scientific sessions and into the exhibit hall. ESA provides free caregiver badges to help support families and those that are traveling with a caregiver to give them complete access to the registrant throughout the meeting. (Please note that the free caregiver badge is available for any attendee that requests one.) ESA provides nursing and lactation rooms at the convention center. These rooms offer a quiet and private place for nursing and include a private nursing area with refrigeration, power outlets, and comfortable furniture.

Convention center concessions are priced and operate much like sports arena and airport concessions.

ESA spends up to $120,000 for coffee/tea breaks for the five days of the Annual Meeting. ESA must purchase all coffee and refreshments from the convention centers, which is standard practice at all convention centers. ESA is not allowed to buy and bring in its own coffee or food. This is an expensive part of a meeting budget. In 2024, the cost per gallon for coffee or hot water for tea at the Long Beach Convention Center was $99 plus 16% administrative service charge along with 10.25% sales charge for a total of $125.09 per gallon. We were also charged an attendant fee of $225 per urn of coffee or hot water. One gallon of coffee equals 21- 6oz cups or 10- 12oz cups. Depending on the number of meeting attendees we order between 140 – 200 gallons of coffee for each break. We try to ensure that other coffee and snack vendors are available on-site or within walking distance.

ESA prioritizes keeping meeting registration affordable for attendees. The following chart compares the registration rates for ESA’s 2024 Annual Meeting with those of other societies.

*2024 prices that are available online.

ESA adopted peer review of contributed and latebreaking abstracts in 2020 to improve the quality of the presentations. From 2020-2023, abstracts were reviewed by volunteer reviewers from the ESA sections and chapters. Since 2024, abstracts are reviewed by the Annual Meeting Abstract Review Committee (AMARC). Each abstract is assigned to three AMARC members who indicate whether the abstract should receive a second level of review by the AMARC co-chairs. The AMARC co-chairs make a final decision to accept, reject, or require revision. For any abstract that is rejected, a specific reason is provided. For any abstract that is required to revise, specific guidance is provided on what the revision should improve.

The abstract guidelines were updated to allow for greater flexibility in the formatting and content of abstracts. We welcome submissions on a wide variety of ecological topics, including but not limited to research-focused studies, topics related to education or human dimensions of ecology, applied ecological works, conceptual or theoretical contributions, and valuable resources to support ecological research.

Abstract guidelines

• The body of the abstract may be up to 400 words maximum.
• The abstract should not contain any headings.
• All abstracts are expected to report on work relevant to the field of ecology.
• All abstracts are expected to report on new contributions (i.e., contributions that have not been previously published). A project that reviews current understanding (e.g., published research), such as meta-analyses, are considered “new work” if that review has not been previously published.
• The abstract must report specific new knowledge (quantitative, qualitative, or conceptual). The results, outcomes, or knowledge may be preliminary, but they may not be vague. Abstracts without explicitly stated novel results, outcomes, or knowledge will be rejected.
• Abstracts must be clear. Poorly written abstracts will be rejected.
• Abstracts must be written in English and must follow standard grammar and punctuation rules. Abstracts that do not meet this guideline will be rejected.

The content of the abstract must:

• Provide sufficient background information for the reader to understand the motivation for the work to be presented.
• Clearly articulate the goals and objectives of the work. Where appropriate, specific research questions and hypotheses should also be clearly articulated (e.g., research projects, meta-analyses, etc).
• Clearly articulate the approaches or methods employed to arrive at the results, outcomes, or conclusions produced by the study. For abstracts reporting on a research project, the specific methods used should be summarized; for more conceptual, theoretical, applied, or other projects, the general approach or framework must be summarized.
• Cleary summarize key outcomes or contributions from the work; these may be in the form of quantitative results (e.g., for research-focused studies) or qualitative outcomes or knowledge produced.
• Conclude with one or more ecologically relevant take-home messages.

We only reject abstracts that do not meet our guidelines. Submitters whose abstract was rejected for the main contributed call are welcome to resubmit for the latebreaking poster call if they are able to rewrite their abstract to meet the guidelines. Submitters whose abstract was rejected for either deadline may appeal the rejection if they feel the abstract was rejected in error. The appeals process is not intended to be an opportunity to revise abstracts that did not originally meet the guidelines, including a lack of results at the time of submission.

In recent years, the interest in presenting a contributed talk has been much higher than presenting a contributed poster. Starting in 2023, submitters of contributed abstracts will indicate their preferred presentation format (talk, poster, or no preference) at the time of submission. All accepted abstracts that prefer a poster will be scheduled as a poster. Due to space limitations for oral sessions, it is likely some submitters who prefer to give a talk will be scheduled to give a poster.
Among the abstracts that have indicated a preference for a talk, the Program Subcommittee will schedule as many talks as space allows. The Program Subcommittee will make these selections randomly to give every submitter who prefers a talk an equal chance of giving one. This decision will be communicated to all submitters at the time of abstract acceptance.

Each person is allowed to submit only one abstract where they are listed as presenting author. This rule is enforced in order to encourage broad participation. You may present a poster or a talk, not both. This rule does not apply to coauthors. An author may be the presenting author on two abstracts only if one of the abstracts primarily reports on ecology education/outreach or is for an Inspire presentation.

ESA’s student volunteer program offers students at any level the opportunity to help at the meeting in exchange for reimbursed Early Bird registration. Applicants must register for the meeting and submit an application to volunteer by the Early Bird deadline.  Student volunteers will work several shifts throughout the week to complete the 10 required hours. Shifts are available every day from Saturday through Friday. Most shifts are 2 hours. Possible assignments include:

• Session Presider: Help speakers for oral presentations move their slides onto the laptop in the room, introduce each speaker, and manage Q&A after each presentation. You will also help resolve minor technical issues. No previous experience with A/V support is required. You will be able to text our professional A/V for help with any technical issues that require troubleshooting. All A/V assistants will be trained on site at one of three 30-minute training sessions. The majority of student volunteer positions are session presider shifts.
• Registration Desk: Greet attendees and give them their registration materials, help keep the Registration area organized, and perform other support tasks as assigned by ESA staff.
• Information Desk: Answer general questions about the meeting. Knowledge of the local area and fluency in other languages are helpful skills for this task.
• Session Attendance Counting: Visit the invited and contributed sessions, weekday lunchtime workshops, Monday morning special sessions, and plenaries to estimate attendance.
• ESA Booth: Help sell merchandise at the ESA booth and answer general questions.
• Press Room: Greet members of the media as they arrive and help answer their questions.
• Career Central: Greet attendees at the welcome desk and answer general questions.
• Set-Up and Packing: Assisting ESA staff with setting up the conference center prior to the meeting and packing up supplies when the conference has concluded.

ESA offers numerous types of support to reduce costs of conference attendance.

• Registration grants (including grants for non-students)
• Dependent care grants
• ESA’s Annual Diversity & Inclusion Scholarship
• Les Real & Jim Brown Student Travel Award
• Trailblazing Student Awards
• Funding from ESA sections and chapters
• Buell and Braun Awards
• Student Volunteers
• Chapter and Section Leadership Grants group

The Annual Meeting website provides a space where people may participate in a room and ride share forum to offset travel costs.

During the registration process ESA includes an ADA section where an individual can check a box that indicates they need additional services to make the meeting accessible to them (such as a mobile scooter, loop plugin for a hearing aid). ESA will contact the individual directly to get more information about how to assist them with their request. ESA encourages anyone with special requests that are not covered in the FAQ to notify the meetings team at gro.asenull@sgniteem well in advance so that every effort can be made to fulfill the request.

All rooms are set with wider aisles to ensure enough clearance for a wheelchair to turn around. At the front of each session room, there is reserved accessibility seating marked with a sign. In session rooms we do not use risers or stages to make it more accessible for all presiders and speakers.

ESA provides free caregiver badges to those when a request is made. All convention center and hotel venues are ADA accessible. ESA also provides a quiet room for use. ESA encourages anyone with special requests that are not covered in the FAQ to notify the meetings team via email well in advance so that every effort can be made to fulfil the request.

Attendees can indicate dietary requirements, including religious dietary requirements or those with allergies when attending events. For large well-attended events, ESA provides a wide selection of food options to accommodate many dietary preferences. ESA follows up with registrants to clarify accessibility requests for small to moderately attended events such as the Diversity Luncheon. ESA requests that all buffet food be labelled with ingredients to provide an additional layer of ingredient awareness.

ESA provides gender neutral bathrooms at the convention center. ESA provides an option for attendees to use pronoun ribbons on badges with a space to write in their gender. We also provide language ribbons on badges with a space to write in their language.

ESA has recorded all plenary sessions since 2019. Videos of plenary sessions, recorded sessions from the 2020 and 2021 virtual meetings, and limited hybrid and virtual content from the 2022-2023 meetings are available on ESA’s YouTube channel. Videos from 2024 are available to registered meeting attendees for one year after the meeting through the online program. After one year, they will become publicly available on YouTube.  

• 2020 Virtual Meeting Recordings
• 2021 Virtual Meeting Recordings
• 2022 Limited Virtual Program Recordings
• 2023 Limited Virtual and Hybrid Program Recordings
• 2024 Limited Virtual and Hybrid Program Recordings (limited to registered attendees)

All ESA presentation abstracts from 2007 to present are available online. The online programs for these meetings will remain available for searching and browsing for the foreseeable future. Abstracts from meetings prior to 2006 are available by request.

 During 2020 and 2021, all talk and poster presentations were virtual, and all presenters were asked to upload their presentations in advance of the meeting. Talk presenters were encouraged to record audio for their slides. Registered attendees had access to all presentations for one year after each event.

During 2022-2024, we offered limited virtual content: a subset of the workshops (only in 2022), short courses, and social events were virtual each year. In addition to their in-person presentations, talk presenters were highly encouraged to upload their slides and record audio (with closed captions). Poster presenters were highly encouraged to upload their poster.

For the 2023 and 2024 meetings, we piloted hybrid invited paper sessions. In 2023, we had 3 hybrid rooms in 2023 which hosted 42 hybrid sessions over 4 days. In 2024, we received fewer proposals and had 1 hybrid room which hosted 12 hybrid sessions. Hybrid sessions included a mixture of speakers who present in person in the session room and speakers who present remotely through Zoom from any location. Hybrid sessions took place in a room with professional A/V staff and equipment to allow remote presentations and remote participation by attendees. All hybrid sessions were livestreamed and recorded.

For the 2025 meeting, we will not be offering any virtual or hybrid content due to low virtual attendance. Below are the attendance numbers of the sessions in the years that we provided virtual content:

At the 2023 meeting, we had 186 total virtual attendees. On average, there were only 15 virtual attendees who joined each hybrid session. This number includes virtual speakers as well. The average went down each day as the meeting progressed (Day 1: 21; Day 2: 16; Day 3: 16; Day 4: 14). The largest virtual attendance for a single session was 40 people. The lowest virtual attendance was 3 people.

At the 2024 meeting, we had 94 total virtual attendees, On average, there were only nine virtual attendees who joined each hybrid session. This number includes virtual speakers as well. The largest virtual attendance for a single session was 18 people. The lowest virtual attendance was 2 people.

 The non-refundable abstract fee is $35 for students and $60 for non-students. If a speaker is unable to pay this fee due to a lack of funding, they can opt out.

Abstract fees will allow the Society to explore using new technological tools and address growing interest in digital content while maintaining a budget that continues to support core administration costs for abstract submission.

The following chart compares the abstract fees for ESA’s 2024 Annual Meeting with those of other societies.

ESA provides free Wi-Fi in the convention center meeting rooms for all attendees to use. The cost of Wi-Fi varies from year to year based on how much each convention center charges ESA.