RPC 2026
The eighteenth RPC conference ran its official app on HEPCon: 81 contributions in 38 sessions, synced from Indico Global, offline on attendees' phones through the week.
Project Snapshot
The First RPC Conference in Brazil
The International Conference on Resistive Plate Chambers and Related Detectors has met since Lecce in 1991, and its eighteenth edition brought the RPC community to Rio de Janeiro for the first time — hosted by the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) with the support of the Brazilian Center for Physics Research (CBPF), and the conference's return to Latin America. Five days, 14–18 September 2026, on the Maracanã campus.
The programme was compact and dense in the way a detector conference is: 81 contributions from 69 speakers in 38 sessions, plenary blocks alternating with paired parallel sessions on detector performance and on physics and simulation, a satellite seminar, and a welcome session on the opening afternoon. The abstracts were searchable in the app before anyone landed in Rio.
From a Programme Link to the Official App in Six Days
RPC 2026 did not start with a data hand-over. On 29 August the organizers pasted their Indico Global programme link into HEPCon's self-serve preview and had a private, browsable version of their own conference within the minute — real sessions, real speakers, real rooms. Six days later the official event was live in the app, and it re-synced from the same link as the schedule settled, through the eve of the conference. Nobody re-keyed a talk.
That is the path the preview was designed for: a committee can judge the app on its own programme before deciding anything, and the preview becomes the event rather than being thrown away.
Three Rooms, Two Parallel Streams, One Pocket
The sessions ran in three rooms — the Maracanã auditoria and lecture room 3017A — with at most two in parallel. That is a shape where a personal schedule matters less for conflict-solving and more for the practical question of the week: which room am I walking to after coffee? Every session card carried its room, the venue was mapped in the app's points of interest, and a room or time change from the programme committee reached installed phones as a push notification.
The programme was cached on first open, so the timetable, abstracts and speakers stayed available on the campus without depending on venue Wi-Fi or an international roaming plan.
What Was in the App Beyond the Timetable
The organizing and international advisory committees were listed in the app with their roles, the conference's sponsors had their own pages, and every talk linked to its speaker's page with their other contributions at the conference. Attendees who had used HEPCon at another conference already had it installed; RPC 2026 simply appeared in their events list.
What the Week Looked Like in the App
31 attendees used the app, 13 on iOS and 18 on Android, opening it 509 times over the week and viewing 981 talks, sessions and pages. The busiest day was the opening Monday, with 17 people on the app. Attendees saved 31 talks to their personal schedules, downloaded 19 papers and slides, and exported 4 talks to their own calendars. Seven people were still using it in the days after the conference, where the programme stays browsable as every HEPCon event does.
The Challenge
- • Give every attendee the full five-day programme offline before the opening session
- • Keep the programme in sync with Indico Global through the conference without any re-keying by the organizers
- • Deliver room and time changes to installed phones as push notifications
- • Let the organizers evaluate the app on their own programme before committing
The Solution
HEPCon imported RPC 2026 from the organizers' Indico Global programme link — first as a self-serve preview the committee built themselves, then as the official event six days later — and kept re-syncing from the same link. Attendees got the 38-session programme offline, a personal schedule, full-text search across the abstracts, the committees and sponsors, and push notifications for schedule changes.
The Results
- 31 attendees used the app during the week, 509 app opens, 981 views of talks, sessions and pages
- 31 talks saved to personal schedules, 19 papers and slides downloaded, 4 talks exported to calendars
- 81 contributions and 38 sessions in the app, three rooms mapped
- Preview built by the organizers from the Indico Global link on Aug 29; official event live on Sep 4
- Programme re-synced from the same link as the schedule settled, without re-keying
More Success Stories
Where this case study fits
This event is best described as Scientific Conferences. If you’re running a similar program structure, start here.