The IEEE VIS Conference (or VIS) hosts more than 1000 people annually. It brings together visualization researchers and practitioners from across the world to share new research and knowledge. Behind the scenes, a team of volunteers puts together the entire conference and makes sure it runs smoothly. Organizing involves logistics of the conference, ensuring that the attendees have an enjoyable time, allocating rooms to multiple concurrent tracks, and keeping the conference within budget. In recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has abruptly disrupted plans, forcing organizers to switch to virtual, hybrid, and satellite formats. These alternatives offer many benefits: fewer costs (e.g., travel, venue, institutional), greater accessibility (who can physically travel, who can get visas, who can get child care), and a lower carbon footprint (as people do not need to fly to attend). As many conferences begin to revert to the pre-pandemic status quo of primarily in-person conferences, we suggest that it is an opportune moment to reflect on the benefits and drawbacks of lower-carbon conference formats. To learn more about the logistics of conference organizing, we talked to 6 senior executive-level VIS organizers. We review some of the many considerations that go into planning, particularly with regard to how they influence decisions about alternative formats. We aim to start a discussion about the sustainability of VIS -- including sustainability for finance, volunteers, and, central to this work, the environment -- for the next three years and the next three hundred years.

翻译：IEEE VIS会议（简称VIS）每年接待超过1000人。它汇聚了来自世界各地的可视化研究人员和实践者，分享最新研究成果与知识。幕后有一支志愿者团队负责统筹整个会议，确保其顺利运行。组织工作涉及会议后勤保障、确保参会者获得愉快体验、为多个并行分会分配场地，以及控制会议预算。近年来，COVID-19疫情突然打乱了原有计划，迫使组织者转向虚拟、混合和分会场形式。这些替代方案带来了诸多益处：更低的成本（如差旅、场地、机构支出）、更高的可及性（包括能否实际出行、能否获得签证、能否解决儿童照管问题）以及更低的碳足迹（因参会者无需搭乘飞机）。随着许多会议开始恢复疫情前以线下为主的常态，我们认为现在是反思低碳会议形式利弊的恰当时机。为深入了解会议组织工作的后勤细节，我们采访了6位VIS高级执行层组织者。本文梳理了策划过程中需考虑的诸多因素，尤其关注这些因素如何影响替代形式的决策。我们旨在开启关于VIS可持续性的讨论——涵盖财务可持续性、志愿者可持续性，以及作为本文核心的环境可持续性——不仅着眼未来三年，更放眼未来三百年。