PHOENIX, Ariz. – Attendance continued to rise with Disaster Recovery Journal’s second in-person conference since the pandemic, DRJ Fall 2022, Sept. 11-14.
“We had an 11% jump from spring, which far exceeded our expectation of 5%.” said DRJ President Bob Arnold.
More than 620 in-person attendees gathered here at J.W. Marriott Desert Ridge. That number includes more than 460 full attendees, plus exhibitors, speakers, board members, and staff.
“We have another 140 signed up for the virtual event,” said Arnold. Most sessions will be available for in-person and virtual attendees until Feb. 28, 2023.
The DRJ Exhibit Hall Raffle kept 75 exhibitor booths buzzing with excitement throughout the event, with 16 attendees taking home technology prizes. Several vendors had their own giveaways, specialty enticements, and product demonstrations.
AlertMedia, illuminr, and Infinite Blue were platinum sponsors for the event. Gold sponsors included Everbridge, Fusion Risk Management, Kyndryl, and OnSolve. Silver sponsors included Agility, BlackBerry, Converge, Cutover, Datacore, eBRP Solutions, International Workplace Group, Riskonnect, SAI360, and Veeam. Bronze sponsors included Acronis, Ascent, Asfalis Advisors, Archer, Dataminr, Ketch Consulting, Pronto Recovery, Rave Mobile Safety, Semperis, ServiceNow, Sungard Availability Services, Veoci, and Virtual Corp.
“I want to thank all of our great sponsors,” said Arnold. “We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without their continued support.”
The DRJ Career Development committee kicked off sessions at DRJ Fall 2022 with “A New Approach to Mentoring,” featuring an introduction to the free DRJ Mentor Program.
“The mentor session was bursting at the seams,” said Arnold. “We need a bigger room next year. Hopefully, people take advantage of those free resources from DRJ, like the mentor program and the [Business Resilience DECODED] podcast.”
The final three days of the conference opened each day with three general sessions, featuring the expert speakers and panels of leading experts in business resilience. All general sessions were recorded live on YouTube and are available to anyone on DRJ’s YouTube site.
The conference also featured several workshops and breakout sessions, a solutions track, two receptions, and several networking meals.
DRJ Spring 2023: Solutions for a Resilient Tomorrow will take place March 12-15, 2023, at the Orlando World Center Marriott.
“We’re still shooting for another 5% (increase),” said Arnold, “but we’re hoping for 10-plus again.
“It’s exciting to know how much traction we’ve gained. I think business continuity has become so much more important to an organization. No one has to explain what we do anymore, internally. Hopefully, that bodes well for everyone’s careers and business continuity as a whole.”
If you’re interested in speaking at DRJ Spring 2023, abstracts are due by Oct. 14, 2022, at 4 p.m. CT.
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