Everyone in the room had their hands raised, but it was not a surge of questions for the panel of veterinarians seated on the stage. Instead, it was a show of unanimity that Hong Kong could indeed successfully host the equestrian events at the Olympics this summer.
The raised hands were in response to the question: 'Do you think it is acceptable to ask horses to compete in Hong Kong?' - the same question posed in an online poll by Horse and Hound. While this straw poll saw all hands raised in favour of 'yes', Horse and Hound's measure was far more polarised. Of the 1,288 votes, just 51 per cent expressed their confidence. The other 49 per cent voted no.
How the International Equestrian Federation (FEI), the organisers of this week's conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, can move the public away from this near-even split is uncertain and that topic was up for discussion as the conference on the heat and humidity in Hong Kong leading up to the Games came to a close.
As the speakers took their turn at the podium, a blank row of seats and microphones sat on top of the stage, as if ready for an intense question-and-answer session. The heat and humidity (it is the combination that makes the summer particularly uncomfortable) has been the focal issue in the lead-up to the Games.
The climate became even more of an issue after the Swiss dressage team withdrew from Olympic competition a few weeks ahead of the scheduled workshop. There was suddenly a flurry of questions about what was being done to ensure the welfare of horses and a few riders began to publicly express their concerns.
Though it had been planned for months, the nearly 160 delegates from 25 national federations could not gather at Lausanne's Olympic Museum quickly enough.
Some anticipated, at the very least, a sense of hostility or perhaps a feistiness that would see the scientists challenged or more questions asked as to whether enough was being done to try and manage the weather conditions.