  The year 2019 marked the quincentenary of the arrival in the southern
hemisphere of Ferdinand Magellan, the namesake of the Magellanic Clouds, our
nearest example of dwarf galaxies in the early stages of a minor merging event.
These galaxies have been firmly established as laboratories for the study of
variable stars, stellar evolution, and galaxy interaction, as well as being
anchors for the extragalactic distance scale. The goal of this conference was
to provide fertile ground for shaping future research related to the Magellanic
Clouds by combining state-of-the-art results based on advanced observational
programmes with discussions of the highly multiplexed wide-field spectroscopic
surveys that will come online in the 2020s.
