Helping Vision Expo Take Its Continuing Education Online
Platform Realms.tv
Key services Virtual event platform, scheduled live streaming, course tracks, checkout, CE certificate automation, transactional email
Quick stat 2,685 CE certificates issued
Project background and goals
Purpose
Vision Expo is North America's leading event for the eyecare and eyewear industry, produced by RX and The Vision Council. Each year its in-person show brings optometrists together for education from the field's leading speakers. For many practitioners, though, traveling to the event is not always possible, and the continuing education they need to maintain their licenses keeps its own calendar.
CEwire is the largest virtual CE conference provider and platform for optometry and eyecare professionals, with more than 20,000 optometrists participating in its online events over the past decade. Vision Expo and CEwire came together to create Vision Expo 2026 Powered by CEwire, a new virtual event that brings selected sessions from Vision Expo 2026 earlier in the year to optometrists online.
Goals
The partnership set out to give optometrists a convenient accredited CE option in the fall while keeping the energy of a live conference. The goals for the event were to:
- Deliver 10 hours of COPE-accredited CE content over two days
- Bring speakers back for live Q&A alongside their recorded sessions
- Give attendees a shared space to ask questions and connect with conference staff and each other
- Offer every course on demand after the live weekend so no one missed out
- Issue CE certificates reliably and at scale
2. Building a virtual conference
The live stream lobby
To recreate the hallway conversations of an in-person show, the weekend opened with an Orientation and Open House stream on Friday, followed by lobby livestreams on Saturday and Sunday where more than 450 attendees chatted. All three streams started and ended on schedule automatically to help guide attendees through the conference.
Two tracks across two days
The program ran on two tracks, Live Conference and On-Demand, with the same eight courses in each. Fourteen instructors delivered 10 hours of COPE-accredited content on topics from glaucoma and keratitis to dry eye, retina, and diabetes, and each course paired its lecture with a quiz and an evaluation.
Automation behind the scenes
We automated the parts of the weekend that would normally need someone on hand to manage them, so the CEwire team could focus on their attendees:
- All eight courses switched from the live schedule to on-demand automatically the morning after the event
- 2,798 certificate PDFs were generated with a 100% success rate
- 6,458 emails went out with zero bounces and zero errors
3. The attendee experience
Live or on demand
Optometrists who registered could join the lectures live during the October weekend. For anyone who could not make it, every course stayed available on demand through December 1, 2026.
Engaged from start to finish
Attendees watched 2,774 hours of course video over the event, about five hours per person.
Chat that worked like a classroom
The conversation was a big part of the draw. Attendees sent 1,507 chat messages across the lobby and the live course track, and in their evaluations many named the chat as a highlight, both for hearing other optometrists' clinical experience and for getting quick clarification during lectures.
Certificates at scale
Each course pairs its lecture with a quiz and an evaluation, and attendees complete the requirements for credit as they go. When a course is finished, the platform generates the CE certificate as a PDF and emails it automatically. 87% of attendees earned at least one certificate, and the average holder earned more than five.
4. Results
By the numbers
In its first year, Vision Expo 2026 Powered by CEwire drew 869 registrations. Attendees were nearly unanimous in their praise: 97.4% rated the courses satisfied or very satisfied in post-course surveys, and 99.9% said the courses met their educational objectives.
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Registrations | 869 |
| Hours of course video watched | 2,774 |
| CE certificates issued | 2,685 |
| Rated satisfied or very satisfied in post-course surveys | 97.4% |
| Chat messages sent | 1,507 |
What attendees said
Loved the format. Like looking in on an actual live lecture. Liking the link up between Vision Expo and CeWire!
Getting POV's from three clinicians, excellent discussions and folks in the chat asked some great questions.
I really enjoyed the interaction in the chat ... learned a lot; great lecture.
Great interaction and watching CE with a live group
the chatbox was very helpful for clarification
the chat! good discussions
Nothing was wrong with this session. It was two hours of great information that I really appreciated!