At 4:40 p.m., the submission dashboard still shows 320 incomplete records. The deadline closes at 11:59 p.m. The inbox looks calm, but that number tells the program team what is coming: access questions, missing confirmations, upload trouble and requests that need a policy decision. At that point, the team either has a conference deadline support plan or starts making decisions under pressure.
A conference support plan gives the team a way to act before that rush arrives. It sets the expected workload, the route for each type of request, the people who can make decisions and the hours the team will cover. The same method works for review completion, decision release, registration, payment and presenter-material deadlines.