TOP 2018

A Focused Workshop Format with a Digital Backbone

The TOP workshop series is deliberately small: roughly 150 experimentalists and theorists gather to discuss top-quark production, decay, and properties in depth. The 2018 edition met in Bad Neuenahr, a spa town on the Rhine, with all sessions in a single venue. Despite the intimate scale, the three-track programme contained over 70 contributions—enough to benefit from digital search and filtering.

Track Filters for a Three-Track Programme

TOP 2018 ran three parallel tracks: experimental measurements, theoretical calculations, and combined interpretation. HEPCon’s track-filter buttons let attendees toggle between tracks instantly. Theorists who wanted to see only the experimental measurements for a particular day could do so in a single tap, and vice versa. The LOC said this was the feature attendees mentioned most in informal feedback.

Favourites and Calendar Export

With talks typically 20–25 minutes long, attendees needed a quick way to plan their day. HEPCon’s favourites feature let them star specific talks, and calendar export pushed those starred sessions into their phone’s native calendar with automatic reminders. For a workshop where cross-track hopping was common, this saved time and reduced missed talks.

Minimal LOC Overhead

Workshop LOCs are even leaner than conference LOCs. The Bad Neuenahr team consisted of fewer than ten people, and dedicating hours to app configuration was not an option. HEPCon’s one-click Indico import handled the entire programme in minutes, and no further maintenance was needed during the week. The LOC reported that the total setup time was under two hours.