Youth conferences are an important part of the spiritual life of many young people, and you do not want to deny them the opportunity to engage in such an experience during COVID-19. However, you also want everyone to be safe. Get to know a few ways that you can be sure to make your youth conference as safe as possible for participants. Then, you can get to planning your youth conference right away.
Allow Fewer Live Participants and Get a Larger Venue
One of the ways that you can make your youth conference safer for participants would be a twofold decision. First, you would need to move your youth conference to a larger venue than you had originally planned. Then, you would allow fewer in-person participants than planned to attend the event.
The idea here is increased social distancing. You would want to have a larger space with fewer young people so that everyone could spread out. You could even mark spots on the floor showing where each person should stand during the conference (or set up seats to be 6 feet apart if the event is a seated one). This way, you can still have youth come and attend your event in person (the best way to experience a youth conference) and not have to worry as much about over-crowding.
Require Masks
Another step you should take if you are planning to have a youth conference during COVID-19 is to require participants and attendees to wear masks. Masks, when paired with social distancing, are a great way to prevent or reduce the spread of COVID-19 if anyone in the audience happens to be sick and not know it.
This will protect everyone involved and is just good practice given the state of the world and the nation today. You could even offer free or for sale masks at the door for those attendees who do not have a mask or who forgot to bring one with them.
Offer an Online Option
While you still want to have your youth conference in person, because of the restrictions proper social distancing will have on the number of people that can attend the event, you may also want to offer an online option. Many online conferencing platforms can make it so you can broadcast your event for people who cannot attend. Set up online registration for the online version and send each person who signs up the link to log in for the event. They will get to see and hear everything going on at the conference. And they could even send in questions via the chat feature on online conferencing to participate actively in the conference.
Now that you know a few safety ideas to help you out with your youth conference during COVID-19, you can be sure you incorporate these ideas into your planning process.
