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Guide for Attendees

General information

Please note: While most of the guidelines provided below are universal, there are slight differences (marked in the text) in how they apply to conference talks and workshop talks.

Guidelines for all attendees

Guidelines for attending on-site

  • Bring your headphones, microphone, and a laptop computer with you when attending onsite to join Whova, e.g., during the online poster session, or other online sessions.

Guidelines for attending online

  • Pick a quiet space for giving your presentation or asking questions, to avoid disturbing background noise.
  • Similarly, always use headphones to avoid echoes and parasitic feedback.

Guidelines for speakers

  • All talks will be delivered via Zoom (embedded in Whova), utilising screen sharing from your laptop (if online) or a session room computer (if the talk is given onsite).
  • Onsite speakers should bring their slides to the venue on a USB to upload them to the session room computers. Please arrive at the room 15 minutes before the session start to make the presentation ready in time.

  • Important Notes:
    • The venue uses Windows machines only.
    • Please prepare slides in PDF or PowerPoint format compatible with Windows.
    • Personal laptops are not permitted, as switching devices causes delays. All presentations must run on the venue’s Windows machines.

  • All talks should be given live — pre-recorded videos are intended only as a backup, to be used sparingly in the event of serious technical difficulties.
  • If you are an online speaker, you will join the meeting through Zoom. Ensure you are present 15 minutes before the session starts.
  • After checking in to your session, confirm with the session chair that your presentation will be virtual or onsite.
  • If you are an online speaker, enable your camera whenever possible to connect more effectively with your audience and enhance the listeners’ experience. Whenever possible, position your camera at eye level and look directly into the camera when speaking. Try to have an uncluttered background or use built-in functionality to blur your natural background or apply a professional-looking background. You can consider using one of the backgrounds with the GECCO logo prepared by the organizing team, available at https://gecco-2025.sigevo.org/Zoom-Backgrounds.
  • Avoid quick flipping of slides – viewers with slower connections may experience significant lag. If you plan to play a video clip, consider slowing it down for the same reason.
  • Be ready to reply to questions that may arise in Whova after your talk.

Guidelines for preparing your oral presentations

  • The amount of time available for presentations should adhere to the following limits:
    • For conference and long workshop presentations: not longer than 16 minutes.
    • For Hot Off the Press and short workshop presentations: not longer than 8 minutes.
    • For any poster presentation (including Late Breaking Abstracts and Competitions): not longer than 5 minutes.
    • For Tutorials: between 60 and 100 minutes.
  • For workshop talks, presentation length may vary; you will receive instructions from the workshop organizers whether presentations are long or short.
  • Make an extra effort to engage the audience and sustain its attention.
  • Focus on conveying the essence of your contribution, leaving out the inessential details. Saying less, but clearly is preferable to rushing through a lot of content.
  • Avoid verbosity on your visual material: prefer short phrases to full sentences, and use no more than 5-6 of them on each slide. Remember that most people are bad at multitasking, which implies they tend to either listen to you or read your slides, but rarely both.
  • Try not to read directly from the slides or notes that you write for yourself, notes are great for practice, but a natural live presentation is so much better, even if not as smooth.
  • If you have equations or result graphs on slides, ensure that you explain them and do not rush through.
  • Do not assume that everyone in the audience knows all the concepts, make a judgement on what needs to be introduced based on the track and session that you are in — a 30 second introduction often saves a lot of frustration for someone less familiar with the topic of your work.
  • Please keep the following in mind that, in online events, the attention span of the audience tends to be shorter than in onsite events — this was one of the motivations for shortening the talks of GECCO — we kindly ask you to make an extra effort to stimulate interactions.
  • Ensure that the font size is readable (without zooming in) even at the HD resolution (1280×720 pixels).

Instructions for pre-recorded video presentations

  • Pre-recorded videos are mandatory for all Posters (online and onsite), as well as for Online Regular Papers (corresponding to an 8-page full paper), Online Workshop (short, long, poster), Online Hot Off the Press and and Online Tutorial presentations. For On-site presenters with oral presentations, no pre-recorded videos are requested.
  • Pre-recorded videos are intended only as a backup, to be used sparingly in the event of serious technical difficulties — all talks should be given live.
  • The video duration/length should adhere to the following:
    • For conference and long workshop presentations: not longer than 16 minutes.
    • For Hot Off the Press and short workshop presentations: not longer than 8 minutes.
    • For any poster presentation (including Late Breaking Abstracts and Competitions): not longer than 5 minutes.
    • For Tutorials: between 60 and 100 minutes.
  • Prepare your video in MP4 file format.
  • Video presentations shall be uploaded using the GECCO submission system.

Video Recording and Editing Software

There exist several options to record and edit your presentation and you may choose the one you are most familiar with. If this is your first time, we suggest the following options:

  • If you already use Zoom for video conferencing, you can launch a Zoom meeting just for yourself and use the Share screen and Record features to easily record your presentation.
  • If you are looking for recording software, we suggest OBS Studio, a multi-platform open source solution, for which you will find many tutorials online.
  • Once recorded, you may wish to edit your video. MacOS users may want to try iMovie. For a multi-platform open source solution, we suggest OpenShot.
  • After editing, if you need to transcode your video, you can use HandBrake.

Guidelines for poster presenters (all, online and onsite)

  • There will be two poster sessions: The first session will run at the same time separately online (Whova) and in-person (onsite). The second session will run completely in Whova, with both remote and onsite participants mingling in Whova.
  • Observe that some online speakers could not be available for the two sessions due to the timezone. Thus, we encourage you to use the chat associated to each poster for asynchronous communication with the authors of the posters.
  • If you are an onsite participant bring your laptop computer, headphones and microphone (if needed) to join the second Whova session and interact with the remote attendees.
  • Be prepared that some participants will spend 1 minute looking at your poster, others 5 mins and some others 15+ minutes.
  • Instead of trying to include every single detail of the work on the poster, think about the three groups above, and how you can create a poster from which everyone takes home something useful. Spend time on deciding what to exclude from the full paper rather than meticulously including every detail.
  • Ensure that the poster clearly presents the key take-home message.
  • Think of what is the best visual way of illustrating this.
  • Use colours that are contrasting.
  • If your paper contains very large tables or result graphs, consider just showing parts of these, or the key information instead of the full detail.
  • You can include a QR code that links to your paper online, so any interested visitor can take a picture and go directly to the paper.
  • Decide on a logical and simple structure for the poster, so that a viewer can figure out how to read it even if you are not there to explain.
  • Remember that the poster is expected to attract attention and spark a discussion, and not to be a replica of the paper.

Technical instructions for posters

All (onsite and online):

  • Prepare a digital version of your poster. The file should be in PDF format with a maximum size of 9 MB. * Vector graphics are encouraged. If you need to use bitmaps, check that the resolution is high enough to appreciate the relevant details.
  • Upload the digital version of the poster using the GECCO submission system.
  • The digital version of the posters will be placed in Whova by the organizers.
  • As part of your submission, you can optionally provide a link to a virtual meeting space (e.g. Zoom, Google Meet) that you would like to use to synchronously discuss your poster. Please, also say in which slot will you be available for synchronous communication (first session, second session or both).
  • You are required to prepare a 5-minute video explaining your poster, which will be made available to the attendees and could also be uploaded to the Vimeo site for further dissemination. Providing a video does not exempt you from presenting your poster at the conference (if you are onsite) or being available for synchronous communication through the Whova chat or videoconferencing tools (if you are online).


Onsite only:

  • Prepare your physical poster in portrait (vertical) orientation and A0 size.
  • Posters can be placed during the day of the poster session. More details will follow.
  • Posters that have already been printed at home can be carried in a poster tube. However, as an alternative, also think about printing your poster on cloth/canvas, as you can fold it and easily transport it in a suitcase.
  • Of course, you can also have the posters printed in Málaga. See information about local printing options below on this page.


Local Poster Printing Options

For those presenting posters, we provide the following possible local printing options.

  • Copicentro Alameda31

  • Copicentro Ordoñez

  • Copyrap Avenida Aurora

  • Dico Digital


General Information: The price is usually around €30–€40 for A0 size, though this may vary depending on the material. Printing typically takes 20–30 minutes, with an additional 10–20 minutes for drying. Many shops allow you to send the file in advance, but not all do. It’s advisable to contact them by email to confirm the details and arrange the process.

Guidelines for session chairs

For detailed instructions, see this PDF (last updated: June 25, 2025)