The meetings, which last for five days, are restricted to about 125 people. They are intensive, with plenary talks in the day and special sessions in the evenings. To encourage people to talk about work in progress, no proceedings are published, although extended abstracts are circulated. The response of the participants to the meetings has been uniformly enthusiastic. The conferences are run in tandem by a permanent organising committee and a local arrangements committee.
Selection is made by the organising committee, generally by ballot.
The meeting is also the occasion for the award of the Householder prize for the best thesis in numerical linear algebra.