COVID Info
If you are traveling to Bilbao from another country, you are probably looking for information related to the COVID situation here, and the requirements to enter Spain.
For the latter, please refer to the webpage (in English) of the Spanish Ministry of Health and the Spain Travel Health webpage for the latest information on entry requirements. In general, Spain requires proof of vaccination (the so-called ‘COVID pass’ or ‘Green pass’. If you do not have it, you can still enter by filling in and supplying additional documentation.
Spain is organised by autonomous regions that can dictate their own anti-COVID measures. For the regulation currently in force in the Basque Country, please refer to this page. As for the current COVID regulations, If you can read Spanish, you may find additional detailed information on the webpage of the Basque Health System, Osakidetza. The Basque Country has a vaccination rate of 93.5% among adults and 60.3% among children. Antigen tests can be easily purchased in any pharmacy at the government regulated cost of around 5 euros.
In general, masks are still mandatory on public transport and recommended in any case where social distancing cannot be kept. No other limitations are currently in place: public events are taking place regularly indoors and outdoors, without any capacity limit. This considered, we designed DRS in a way that it will be possible for you to keep an appropriate distance from other attendees.
The rooms at the main venue, the Bizakia Aretoa, have an average size of 80smq, allowing for space between participants to each session. Most of the rooms do not have doors, so fresh air can circulate. We will make sure rooms are properly ventilated between sessions.
The main conference lounge, where coffee-breaks and meals will be served, covers an open-space area of more than 200smq, half of which is occupied by a large outdoor terrace. Most of the meals will come with a lunch box that you will be able to take away to enjoy your lunch either on the terrace’s lawn or the nearby river banks and park.
Instead of a long, seated gala dinner, we opted for three social events with finger food and drinks, where people can stand and walk around at their pleasure. Each event takes place in a different venue, all of them are large open spaces with good ventilation. For the opening night at the Guggenheim Museum, we requested the galleries be open to allow attendees to move freely, alone or in small groups, rather than follow a guided tour as would be usual.
Auditoriums are working at full capacity at the moment, according to local regulations. Even so, we are planning to have two parallel auditoriums open for the inaugural keynote (the Guggenheim Museum’s and the Bizkaia Aretoa’s) so that people can evenly split among the two.
Fringe activity happens mainly outdoors. Check the full programme and reserve your spot here.
Additionally, DRS2022 is a fully hybrid conference so even if you are in Bilbao, you can still decide to follow all activities from an outdoor location of your choice, from your hotel room, from a café, connecting either with your mobile, tablet or laptop.
To all DRS2022 participants, we will provide you on arrival with local contact and conference contacts in case of COVID-related emergencies.