A report on the first virtual PLDI conference

TL;DR

This report on PLDI 2020 details the transition to a virtual conference due to COVID-19, analyzing attendee engagement, perceptions, and diversity, offering insights for future virtual event organization.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive account of organizing a major virtual conference, including logistical details, attendee feedback, and diversity analysis, serving as a resource for future virtual conferences.

Findings

Attendees had mixed views on virtual vs. physical conferences.

Engagement levels varied among participants.

Diversity of registrants was analyzed and discussed.

Abstract

This is a report on the PLDI 2020 conference, for which I was General Chair, which was held virtually for the first time as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report contains: my personal reflections on the positive and negative aspects of the event; a description of the format of the event and associated logistical details; and data (with some analysis) on attendees' views on the conference format, the extent to which attendees engaged with the conference, attendees' views on virtual vs. physical conferences (with a focus on PLDI specifically) and the diversity of conference registrants. I hope that the report will be a useful resource for organizers of upcoming virtual conferences, and generally interesting to the Programming Languages community and beyond.