How six weed science societies run their annual meetings on Fourwaves
Published on 04 Nov 2026
The Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) and five regional weed and invasive plant societies run their annual meetings on Fourwaves: multi-step abstract submission, registration and payments. Eric Gustafson manages WSSA through Interactive Management, Inc. (IMI), an association management company. One platform for every society makes joint meetings simple, lets each year's program chairs clone the previous meeting (from 80 to 120 hours of setup to almost none), and saves WSSA more than 25% of its administrative hours.
Scientific society annual meetings of up to 900 attendees, and joint meetings between societies
500 to 900 attendees and 400 to 600 abstracts at the WSSA annual meeting; seven or eight meetings a year on Fourwaves; program chair setup down from 80 to 120 hours to almost none
Scientific societies managed by an association management company (IMI)
One abstract and registration system for every society, continuity from one volunteer program chair to the next, and less administrative work.
The Western Society of Weed Science annual meeting website, one of the six society meetings run on Fourwaves each year.
The Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) and five regional societies use Fourwaves to collect abstracts, manage registrations and also process payments for their annual meetings.
Eric Gustafson, who manages WSSA, explains how one platform made joint meetings simpler, cut administrative hours and gave volunteer program chairs their time back.
Who runs the WSSA meetings
Eric Gustafson is the CEO and owner of Interactive Management, Inc. (IMI), an association management company in Colorado that manages several scientific societies. He has a background in invasive species management which helps him follow the research these societies present.
A total of six weed and invasive plant societies run their annual meetings on Fourwaves:
- Weed Science Society of America (WSSA)
- North Central Weed Science Society
- Northeastern Weed Science Society
- Southern Weed Science Society
- Western Society of Weed Science
- Aquatic Plant Management Society
Together, the six societies hold seven or eight meetings a year on Fourwaves, and plan the same for 2027.
What a weed science annual meeting looks like
A WSSA annual meeting draws 500 to 900 attendees and between 400 and 600 abstracts, depending on the location. Regional meetings are a bit smaller in size.
Attendees include tenured professors, industry professionals from the societies’ sustaining member companies, department heads, deans and graduate students, the typical crowd of academic and research conferences. Many of them also volunteer to run the events.
Those meetings have three main goals:
- Networking. People meet face to face to talk about the industry and their research.
- Presenting research. Each presentation goes into the proceedings and onto the presenter’s CV, which graduate students, postdocs and assistant professors sometimes need to advance their careers.
- Recognizing excellence. Awards, scholarships and sponsorships celebrate the societies’ members. WSSA added a single slide talk, a five-minute oral presentation that teaches early-career researchers to get their point across quickly.
Researchers discussing their work at the Western Society of Weed Science 2026 annual meeting in Tucson. Photo: Andre Lucas Simoes Araujo.
Why WSSA moved from Confex to Fourwaves
WSSA first ran an abstract submission system built by its web developer. When that system reached its limits, WSSA evaluated and tried other platforms, including Confex and Omnipress. “We really felt like they would be a good fit, and it did not work,” Eric says.
A member of the Western Society of Weed Science then described how easy Fourwaves had been to use, and WSSA chose Fourwaves without running another evaluation.
For societies hesitating to switch, Eric is clear: “You get used to the things you don’t like about your current platform and it often feels a burden to make the change. Moving to Fourwaves wasn’t a hurdle at all.”
Multi-step abstract submission: title first, abstract and presentation later
The weed science societies collect each submission in three steps on Fourwaves and authors return to the same submission each time:
- Title and authors. Authors first submit a title and an author list, so the program chairs can start planning the printed and digital program early.
- Abstract. Authors come back later to add their abstract.
- Presentation. Closer to the meeting, presenters upload their slides or poster.
The abstract submission process is very simple for our people: they just copy and paste the abstract from their work.
Executive Secretary, Weed Science Society of America (WSSA)
Graduate students also name their major professor, who is notified as soon as their name is attached to a submission. The same abstract management software runs this process for all six societies.
Joint meetings on one abstract and registration system
WSSA’s strategic plan calls for more joint meetings with the regional societies, because a joint meeting saves attendees a week of travel and its costs. WSSA met with the Canadian Weed Science Society in Vancouver in 2025, and the North Central and Northeastern societies meet together in December 2026.
Before Fourwaves, a joint meeting meant copying data from different platforms, sometimes two versions of the same one, into a single program. Details got lost along the way, sometimes a whole region’s award entries.
Now every society uses the same abstract system and the same registration system, so in a joint meeting:
- IMI sees which society each registrant belongs to and places them in the right category.
- Each society keeps its identity and its own awards.
- Award committees check that every entry landed in the right society’s competition.
Having all of our groups aligned through Fourwaves makes joint meetings extremely simple. We're all on the same abstract system and the same registration system, so it's much easier for us to manage all of those thousands of details.
Executive Secretary, Weed Science Society of America (WSSA)
One account across meetings, and payments to each society’s PayPal
Many regional members also attend the WSSA meeting every year. “They create their account once and register for the different meetings,” Eric says.
Registration payments go straight to each society’s own PayPal account, and most regional societies have one already. “Payments through Fourwaves have been very simple for all of the groups we manage,” Eric adds.
From 80 to 120 hours to almost 0 for program chairs
The societies have new volunteer program chairs every year. Instead of learning a new system, each chair clones the previous year’s event. “It’s one button and it does everything,” Eric says.
On our previous platform, a program chair spent 80 to 120 hours just trying to set up the meeting. Now it takes them almost no time.
Executive Secretary, Weed Science Society of America (WSSA)
The learning curve shrinks every year. The notes each chair leaves for the next one now come down to changing the date, the title and the location. For volunteers who already work 50 or 60 hours a week in their full-time jobs, that time back is what keeps volunteering reasonable.
More than 25% fewer admin hours
Eric estimates that with Fourwaves, WSSA’s business administration saves more than 25% of its hours. “The stress reduction is substantial,” he adds.
Support for first-time program chairs
Attendees who run into a problem use the help button and the chat assistant, and their feedback has been very positive.
Program chairs also rely on the humans providing support. “As good as the support bot is, the follow-up from the live person is very appreciated and very valuable, especially to our program chairs who are doing it the first time,” Eric says.
Two examples:
- Jonathan from Fourwaves showed the team how to register several people in one transaction while keeping each registrant’s details together.
- This year, two WSSA organizers worked with Ruxi to adjust their setup based on last year’s lessons.
Next: the conference app, and more groups on Fourwaves
Eric is excited about the Fourwaves conference app. He wants to use it for WSSA and to show it to the program chairs of the joint North Central and Northeastern meeting in December 2026.
IMI is also moving its other groups to Fourwaves, because program and session chairs find their work much easier there:
- One group still uses Microsoft CMT because it is familiar and free. “Free is never free,” Eric says.
- A new client collects titles and abstracts in spreadsheets. That is too much for one volunteer, and it leaves the data on one person’s laptop, where IMI’s staff cannot see it or support the meeting.
Eric’s word to other society executives
Eric sees association management as a service business: serving members, leaders and the societies that pay IMI to do it. Service is his first argument for Fourwaves, and he says there are very few things the team does not love about it.
The service you get from Fourwaves is far beyond anything we've had with any other platform. We love it, we're using it, and we're trying to bring more of our groups to it. And we're not running one or two societies here, we're running a number of them.
Executive Secretary, Weed Science Society of America (WSSA)
Book a 15 minute call and we'll show you how societies run abstracts, registration and payments on one platform, year after year.
About the Weed Science Society of America
The Weed Science Society of America is a non-profit professional society founded in 1956 to promote research, education and extension outreach on weeds and invasive plants. Four regional societies (North Central, Northeastern, Southern and Western) and the Aquatic Plant Management Society hold their own annual meetings, sometimes jointly with WSSA.