How a small training company runs its travelling conference ‘It’s more about connection than recruitment’

With a core team of three and a network of freelance trainers, Radically Open takes a therapy method to psychologists and psychiatrists around the world. For registration, communication and accreditation across all its events – including a biennial international conference – the company relies on a single platform: Cvent. Co-founder Roelie Hempel talks about that choice, the lessons of a first hybrid conference and the move from Chicago to Barcelona.

Roelie Hempel earned her PhD at Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2008 and went on to work as a researcher at the universities of Exeter and Southampton. At Southampton she worked with psychologist Thomas Lynch, who developed Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or RO DBT. Since 2017 she has worked full-time on disseminating the method.

She does so through Radically Open Ltd and RO DBT Online B.V., which she runs together with Erica Smith-Lynch, Thomas Lynch’s wife. Jodi Bhachu-Smith is business support manager.

‘We’re based in the Netherlands because I live here, but really we work worldwide,’ says Hempel. The trainers are not employees but therapists who have mastered the method and are hired course by course. ‘Last week we ran a course in Houston, but it could just as easily be Australia, Indonesia or Argentina.’

Too much self-control

RO DBT is aimed at people with too much self-control – overcontrol, in clinical terms. ‘That may sound counter-intuitive, because the more self-control you have, the more successful you tend to be at work and in your social life,’ Hempel explains. ‘But there is a tipping point. Some people are so perfectionistic that they get completely stuck, because nothing is ever good enough.’ Anorexia nervosa is an extreme form of this, but the pattern occurs in other conditions too.

The therapy teaches people to become more open and flexible. ‘One of the biggest problems for these people is loneliness. A question we hear a lot is: how do I make a friend?’ Humour plays a striking role. ‘We call it therapeutic silliness: just being a bit silly now and then. To show that the world is still there afterwards.’

From webinar to conference

The training programme has three levels. Levels 1 and 2 can be followed live or on demand; the highly practical Level 3 is always live. Each year the company organises four multi-day courses, usually in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, as well as online. It also runs around four one-day events and up to ten in-depth webinars of about two hours each.

The flagship is the international conference, held every two years since 2023. The first two editions took place in Chicago; the third follows in Barcelona in 2027. ‘It mainly attracts people who already know the method and want to go deeper,’ says Hempel. ‘It’s more about connection than recruitment.’

Three requirements tipped the balance

Preparing for that first conference prompted the search for a fully-fledged attendee platform. Until then, the company had used the registration system RegPack. In early 2022, just after the pandemic, Hempel met a Cvent representative in a café in Leiden. ‘I explained what we needed and he showed me what was possible.’

Three features proved decisive. First, the integration with Zoom, needed for webinars and online sessions. Second, the OnArrival app, which checks attendees in and out of each session. ‘People earn accreditation points – continuing education credits – but only for the sessions they actually attend. So attendance has to be recorded session by session.’ Third, automated communication. ‘You set up all the emails once. That takes half a day to a full day, depending on the event, but after that you don’t have to worry about it.’

She also counts the support as a plus. A dedicated account manager passes questions on to specialists, and the online helpdesk responds quickly. ‘They really care about their customers.’

Lessons from a hybrid debut

Coming in the wake of the pandemic, the 2023 conference was hybrid from the outset: some 150 participants in Chicago and another 150 online. ‘That was very ambitious, and more complicated than we expected,’ Hempel recalls. Technically everything went well, but the human element proved tricky. ‘With a hybrid event it’s crucial that everything starts on time. If speakers keep talking, things fall apart. And that is exactly what happened in the very first session.’

The organisers absorbed the delay by shortening the lunch break, but in the meantime the online audience was left watching an empty stream. ‘In the room you can say: we’ll start fifteen minutes late. But at home people think: what’s going on?’ 

Her conclusion: a hybrid conference calls for a tightly run programme and a professional crew. ‘We’re so small – I did almost everything on my own. I wouldn’t want to do it that way again.’

Learning the system

Hempel describes the learning curve as steep, although she already had experience of building websites in WordPress. ‘It’s mainly about understanding what happens further down the line when you turn a dial.’ A Cvent staff member took her through the system in detail and built the framework of the first event website, which the team then filled in themselves. Her colleague Bhachu-Smith later learned the system too. ‘It remains a complex system for what are sometimes complex events. You mostly learn by doing.’

All live events, webinars included, now run through Cvent. The platform also supports registration in other languages.

That will come in handy for a week-long course soon to be delivered entirely in Spanish, with a Spanish-language website. An earlier bilingual course using AI translation was not a success. ‘Translation really is still a human job. Now we have a Spanish-speaking trainer.’ 

‘One wish remains unfulfilled; bringing our on-demand learning experience together in one place. We’d love to track how much of each video an individual watches and have them complete a quiz or survey before they’re awarded a certificate. For now, we use a separate, custom-built website for that. In an ideal world, it would all happen within Cvent.’

Attendance down to the minute

The latest enhancement is an add-on module that connects Cvent with the company’s Zoom account, bringing detailed attendance data directly into Cvent.

‘We need to know exactly who was there and when, so we can award the points.’ Until recently, the team tracked this by hand. ‘We’d be sitting there keeping a tally: oh, now so-and-so has dropped out.’ With webinars of more than forty participants, that is simply not feasible. Thanks to the integration, the reports now feed into Cvent automatically.

The system as an extra employee

Cvent works with modules. Radically Open pays an annual base fee plus a charge per registration. On top of that come the Attendee Hub, an event website with practical information that is billed per user, and OnArrival, which is paid for per event. The company has a five-year contract based on 750 registrations in conference years and fewer in the years in between.

‘Of course it is a substantial investment,’ says Hempel, ‘but we see it as an employee we would otherwise have had to pay. The system takes an enormous amount of work off our hands.’

From Chicago to Barcelona

The 2025 edition in Chicago – this time not hybrid – had room for 250 participants; around 150 attended. According to Hempel, many international participants, including a large share of the company’s European and Latin American clients, decided against travelling to the United States because of the tighter entry policy under President Trump. 

That prompted the organisers to bring the conference to Europe in 2027. Even so, capacity in Barcelona has been deliberately capped at 100 places, half of which have already been sold. ‘Our largest client group is in America, and for them the trip is expensive,’ Hempel explains. ‘Not all psychologists are wealthy, and Americans often pay for this kind of training themselves.’ If interest grows, the organisers can move to a larger room.

The team found the venue through Cvent’s venue sourcing module, Cvent Supplier Network. ‘You specify what you need, and hotels send a proposal or let you know they can’t accommodate you.’ The quotes can be compared side by side on dates, rooms and costs. Radically Open normally works with local partners, such as healthcare providers or the UK’s National Health Service, which provide a room in exchange for five free places. In Barcelona there were no such contacts, and after the university rooms in Chicago the organisers wanted a more prestigious venue: a hotel.

New this time is a full-day Spanish-language workshop ahead of the conference. ‘We’re in Spain, so we’re giving it a go. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.’

‘Start small’

What advice does Hempel have for organisers using Cvent for the first time? ‘Start small. We didn’t begin with the conference either, but with a webinar, to see how it works.’

Her second tip: accept the help that is on offer. ‘Part of it is intuitive, but it’s good to be guided through it. You can do an incredible amount with it, and I think that’s fantastic.’

 

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About Radically Open
Radically Open Ltd and RO DBT Online B.V. provide training worldwide in Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO DBT) for mental health professionals. The company celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024. The next international RO DBT conference takes place from 3 to 5 June 2027 at Novotel Barcelona City.