But with the core group's planning, Smith says his absence was more of a nuisance for him-because he had to miss the week's events-than it was for anyone else.
"By the end of AIDS Week I could have flown out of the country and the people who were running it could have handled everything," he says.
And Bonner, who was among those left in charge, says everything went smoothly.
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"It was remarkably low-stress. One of the greatest things about it was that at each event there was a different group of people," she says. "People didn't just walk away, they took something with them."
-Staff writer Rachel E. Dry can be reached at dry@fas.harvard.edu.