The New Normal

"This is our new normal and we must adapt to give our attendees the experience they're expecting of us"

These were the words that I told our team back in January 2021 as we began planning for our big day in September. Our team started discussing "how do we continue to flatten the curve at our conference." with the vaccine now being administered nationally. While we never thought we would have to hear another mask mandate from the CDC, we began to implement policies such as temperature checks, vaccination cards, or PCR tests along with additional COVID precautions to help ease the worries of our attendees. With the rise of the expected COVID variants due to a viruses ability to mutate and adapt to its' environment, we've decided to take an unprecedented for a conference by requiring all attendees to take a rapid COVID test onsite before being able to enter the conference's main event center. By requiring this additional layer of health-security, we're helping to ensure that all attendees will arrive and depart our conference in good health to their families. The Render-Atlanta recipe has always been to have a fun time while being serious about learning new engineering practices, and we're expanding this to our COVID health screen detailed below

The Process

We know that going through a comprehensive health screen is the last thing you want to do before jumping into the fun at our conference, but we're here to make it as painless and fun as possible from start to finish.

1. On arrival at the conference, each attendee will have to show their ticket, along with proof of vaccination or negative PCR test dated September 11, 2021, or after
2. Attendees will then be given a swag bag filled with goodies from our sponsors and a pair of KN95 masks for the duration of the conference
3. Our conference COVID swab workers will then administer the COVID nasal swab rapid test, ready within 15 minutes. To keep it exciting as you wait, you'll have the opportunity to decorate your mask with some branded Render-Atlanta and sponsor goodies, and jam out to some tunes from our conference DJ
4. If your COVID test comes back negative, you'll be allowed to enter the main conference area! If your result is positive, you won't be able to enter the conference area at this time because we'll automatically move your ticket to Render-Atlanta 2022 at no additional cost.

It is important to note that during this entire COVID screening process that social distancing rules will be in effect to ensure the health and safety of all those pending results. Additionally, everyone will receive either a green or red wristband based on their comfort level of human interaction during the conference. Asking for a red wristband indicates that you're uncomfortable with physical touching but would still interact with air high-fives and virtual fist bumps. Asking for a green wristband demonstrates that you're excited for all the high-fives and physical, social interaction you could muster!Each attendee also receives hand sanitizer to utilize at their pleasure to enjoy our tasty food without worry. You can read our updated comprehensive COVID precautions list on our website including having an onsite licensed nurse and what our venue is doing to ensure your safety.

Thank You

We can't thank the community enough for supporting our efforts to bring more culture into the front-end & React ecosystems. While we do wish that the world was COVID-free by now, we understand that this is our new reality for the foreseeable future. We're hoping that our COVID policies & precautions help ease your fears of attending this September. We can't wait to welcome you to the Peach State this fall, and until then, we'll continue to "Render" new ways to continue enhancing your upcoming experience.