European Skydiving Symposium 2022

A Safer Skydiving Boot Camp to kick you off for the European summer 

Intense networking, sharing experiences and boosting knowledge, packed in three days of safety-oriented seminars. Save the dates – we meet on 17-19th March 2022 in Warsaw, Poland. 

Skydiving is a continuous learning process. Nobody can say they have learned everything there is to know. Each visit to the dropzone brings new skills and fresh knowledge. However, it is not only jumping that influence your general experience in the sport. Countless discussions with more experienced jumpers and instructors, your own observations, spontaneous incident analysis at the dropzone – all such elements put together the puzzles you can call “my skydiving experience”. 

Experience boost like no other

Imagine coming to one place where you can meet world-class experts in all important disciplines of our sports: canopy pilots, wingsuiters, instructors, freefly coaches, big-way organisers, tandem masters, riggers and more.

Imagine coming out of your home DZ environment to connect with others, learn how skydiving looks elsewhere and what opportunities this sport may give you in the years to come.

Imagine discussing rig construction with the engineers, gear choices with dealers or learning about new products directly from the manufacturers. They are making this sport more and more approachable, safe and comfortable and have so much to show you.

The main idea of the event is to bring the European community together and prepare for the upcoming season 2022. After the wintertime, even experienced jumpers may feel some anxiety before the first jump of the year, not to mention students. We consider the Symposium to be some sort of gigantic Safety Day before the new season. 

Marta Molińska
Symposium Co-organiser, from Sky Camp Drop Zone 

Fourth Edition

The idea for the conference was born back in 2018 when Arek Majewski and Tom Noonan, UPT, decided to organise a seminar for tandem masters in Poland. During the event many said it would be great to address other safety issues outside of tandem skydiving. Many instructors, riggers and regular skydivers struggle with countless issues that are related to the safety in skydiving. And the sport is always developing, with innovations in gear and safe practices, so it’s important to keep up to date, and be able to share this knowledge. 

The second edition took place in 2019 with topics on various skydiving aspects, although it was still addressed mostly to the Polish audience. 

When preparing the 2020 edition, two major decisions were made: 

I decided to make the event European and available for anyone to join. Due to some Polish presentations on the agenda, we also provide simultaneous translation. That said, I wanted to organise the 2020 event together with Sky Camp, one of the most popular Polish drop zones. Bigger events require much more work and commitment. Since after 2020 success the event got a lot of attention, we decided to add one more co-organiser this year, which is Skydive Warszawa. This way we created a Dream Team for the Symposium organisation. I’m more than sure the 2022 edition is going to be epic.

Arek “Maya” Majewski, LOT G7, organiser of the event

The second decision was to organise the event every second year, in the years when PIA is not taking place. 

We didn’t want to make an impression of competition between the events. We work with and get great support from USPA. The idea was for both events to be complementary to each other. Firstly, because our event takes place in Europe, secondly, because it’s a conference instead of the expo event.

Arek “Maya” Majewsk

Content variety

The European Skydiving Symposium is a conference around the safety of skydiving. The idea is to gather in Warsaw and spend three days together – each packed with amazing content provided by professionals. The organisers decided to have the main stage for all the audience (beginners/intermediate/pros) and each day added one separate “pro track”: first day is for the tandem masters, second day for the instructors, third day for the riggers. 

Each group of our community needs different presentations. If you’re an experienced tandem master, you won’t really need to listen about the dos and don’ts on a new dropzone, but you’d likely want to listen about the factors that influence exit order. If you’re just about to hit your first 100 jumps, you might find a lot of insights that are not part of an AFF course. Very often there is not enough time during the jumping days to explain such matters as importance of the separation between the groups, jump-run mysteries or risks that come with a brand new GoPro on your helmet. And there are some aspects of skydiving that we all care about like potential emergencies on the plane. We’re on the same boat here, literally. 

Arek “Maya” Majewsk

Legends

What’s really exciting, is that the Symposium is also a chance to meet these legends in our sport…

• Bill Booth (UPT) in person – the legend of the skydiving industry. The inventor of Skyhook, 3-ring system, D-bag and tandem skydiving, for that matter
• Albert Bertchtold, USPA Director will give a seminar on safety culture and the normalization of deviance
• Rich Medalay from Performance Designs is going to share tips on packing to make openings stable and safe
• Melissa Lowe, USPA director and renowned world record organizer will present safety procedures and good practice in big-way organising
• Tom Parker from Sun Path will show improvements every rigger can make during the reserve pack job. 

Safety seminars

Emergencies on the plane, hard pull analysis, canopy creation process, student limit recommendations, keeping out of the Danger Zone – and much more safety-oriented content! 

Have an idea of your own to contribute? You can submit your topic in the Call-4-Content form.

We’re still working on the agenda, it should be ready by the end of November. Based on what we already know, the choice of topics is not going to be easy. If we’d like to share it all, this event would need 2 weeks instead of 3 days! So, we are only going to select the most valuable and important matters to be discussed and presented on stage. 

Katarzyna Witkowska from Skydive Warszawa, co-organiser of the Symposium 

Still not sure? 

The Grand Raffle with goodies, vouchers and more precious prizes from Sponsors, Blind Packjob Races and the legendary After Party on the top floor of the hotel (Aviator Club, name says it all) are all things your skydiving heart won’t ignore. 

And, think about it, the European Skydiving Symposium seems to be the right place to express any doubts or questions you might have regarding literally any aspect of our sport. Dig them out, write them down and come and find out the answers from the best.

See you in Poland, 17-19 March 2022 

Euro Symposium Info

• Dates: 17-19 March 2022
• Venue: Airport Okęcie Hotel **** – a discount for attendees applies, book via the hotel by email with “European Skydiving Symposium” in the title of the message.
• Other recommended hotels: Sangate Hotel (5 minute walk), Hampton by Hilton (10 minute walk), Holiday Inn Express (7 minute walk). There is also a vast network of AirBnB accommodation in Warsaw.
• Travel: The Airport Okecie Hotel offers a free shuttle bus every 30 minutes from the International Airport in Warsaw. The venue is 5 minutes in a (taxi/Uber from the airport if you prefer car transportation. 
• Covid-19 Policy: Since the pandemic is not totally over yet, the Event Policy is a full refund if the event is cancelled due to Covid restrictions and a full refund if travelling from your location is not possible due to Covid restrictions or infection.
• Wi-fi: Unlimited free wi-fi during all 3 days of the conference.
• Manufacturers: These leading brands are all supporting the event; UPT, CPS, PD, Cypres, Dekunu, Sun Path, Cookie, Flypost, Deem Flywear, SWS, Skylark, Flyspot, Vigil, Sky-shop.eu
• Attendance: the symposium is three days, but you can attend for 1, 2 or 3 days, as you wish.

Ticket price: 

• Early Bird tickets are available until 1 December 2021 for 49 € per conference day. Regular price is 59 € per conference day, from 2 December 2021 to 20 February 2022
• Night Owl tickets cost 69 EUR per day, 21 February onwards.

FFI: visit Euro Symposium 2022 website

Video Highlights Euro Symposium 2021

Edit by Ariel Hajbos