The IEEE Oceans’05 Europe Conference & Exhibition in Brest, France – June 19-23, 2005 - started the new series of two Oceans conference per year. We were, for quite a while, afraid of being undersold due to the unusual dates of the conference, to concurrent events - even in Brest – and to the strong delegate’s custom of going to an Oceans conference at the beginning of the Fall season. The relatively small number of abstracts and then of papers we received is a reflection of this conjunction of facts. Nevertheless, the conference presented a very strong scientific program and a quite busy exhibit and ended up with a substantial surplus. Delegates, attendants and exhibitors enjoyed the warm, cozy and friendly atmosphere of Le Quartz conference Center. On top of the usual Technical Sessions (including Tutorials and a Student poster Competition) and of the Exhibit area, the Conference hosted two main associated meetings: the IEEE/OES Administrative and Technical Committees and the Marine Board of the ESF (European Science Foundation). This left the opportunity for the leaders of the two institutes to meet and exchange ideas.
The Oceans conference is a forum where researchers and engineers, academic institutions and companies are exchanging ideas or new concepts. The ocean is a very complex and difficult place yet to fully discover. Therefore, the highest and most sophisticated technology is necessary for this exploration which is as complicated as the spatial odyssey. Nevertheless the goal remains a better understanding of this vast and fragile environment and our (the human kind) interaction with it. Hence, a very large number of domains are present in any Oceans conference: underwater technology from AUVs to data acquisition, processing and communication, theoretical developments (models, methods) or concerns closer to the human being (marine pollution, mammals –cetaceans - behaviour, …).
Oceans’05 Europe, as usual, devoted a large part of the conference to underwater acoustics processing and systems (AUVs, ROVs, …). But, the conference was not restricted to these classical domains of instrumentation and offered lots of openings for the environmental concerns – oceans remote sensing, oil spill monitoring, biotechnology, living resources - or the societal impacts of marine policies – coastal zone management, marine safety and security, etc. Another field linking the instrumentation approach and the policy makers dealt with data, data connections and management.

Technical Sessions
From a statistical point of view, we had 254 papers presented out of 345 abstracts received. We had 17 graduate students present for defending their Posters. The papers were presented during two and a half day within 62 sessions. These sessions were held in 6 or 7 rooms in parallel. For what the following statistics could mean the average attendance was around 30 persons per room with a high at 56 and a low at 7. Therefore we can claim that the attendance in the session rooms was exceptionally high and the level of exchanges between all delegates and exhibitors as well was quite unusual. The conference proposed a very successful series of 6 high level Tutorials on the first day with a high participation of delegates (mean attendance of 13 persons).

Exhibit
We had 48 booth, 8 of which were offered to either the next Oceans conferences or other participating societies (City of Brest, Oceanology International, OES, Imarest, ...). We had around 150 exhibitors (many companies came with 2 or 3 persons). The attendance was quite important from the delegates: having the coffee break in the exhibit space helped a lot. We had also many visitors. It is difficult to give a number as the entrance was free. 80 of them registered their name, but at least 2 times more visited the place. The registration of all regular participants (excluding the free ones) being around 650 persons altogether (i.e. with exhibitors), we probably had around 800 visitors on the booth during the 3 days of the event.

Local Arrangements
In light of the small hotels, European customs, and the uncertain number of participants, we did not book blocks of rooms, but negotiated prices for rooms that were held up to a month prior to the conference. The on-line reservation service was used to make 133 room reservations in 8 different hotels. These reservations accounted for 658 room-nights (459 single, 187 double and 12 triple) for an overall 57,000 € of expenses. We had very few errors and no-shows. We conclude that a large number of delegates made reservations directly with the hotels of their choice (and paid a higher rate!). A fair estimation would double the figures given above.
The organizing committee intended that the Oceans’05 Europe Conference would be a place for exchanges and encounters and that it would serve the main participants – scientists, engineers, and exhibitors – as a link to the local culture and community. The main goals of the local arrangements committee were facilitating the everyday life of the delegates, swiftly answering their questions and requests, and delivering high quality services. For these reasons members of the organizing committee were almost continuously present in the IEEE/OES booth and employees of the conference center were visible and easily available in the Exhibit space. Access to the Exhibit was free and no guard was needed. Badges were not checked at the session room entries. A PC, a printer, and a photocopier were available in the OES booth and were frequently, but not excessively used. We had some requests for cables and outlet converters, which were satisfied. Besides making the lives of participants easier, it increased the number of new subscriptions by making the booth more attractive and useful.
It is very important to have a friendly and efficient team who have local knowledge and who are bilingual. Just as important, the team members need to be on the same wavelength as the OES. Two people filled this role during the OCEANS’05 Europe Conference and were an enormous help both to the people running the OES booth and to the participants in the conference.
Conviviality and warm welcome are a trade mark of Breton people: we tried to live up to the expectation and we prepared a series of outstanding social events: the ice breaker at Oceanopolis, the Gala Banquet at the Naval Academy, the Exhibit and the City hall reception. These Social events were greatly appreciated and all of those attending will keep a vivid memory of these fabulous times. After this week of hard work and convivial meetings, the weather having been very kind with us, Brest will be reminded as the Sunny City of the West.

René Garello, General Chairman
Oceans’05 Europe