It's not a convention, it's a conclave: "Kicking off a four-day conclave during which they hope to both win over moderates who are uneasy with Mr. Trump’s divisive leadership..."

"... and energize liberals who are unenthusiastic about their own nominee, Democrats reached for the recent past. They showcased Mr. Sanders, the leader of the left and their reigning presidential runner-up; a handful of Republican defectors, including former Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio; and the most popular figure from the previous administration, Mrs. Obama.... Mrs. Obama portrayed the Trump era as a gallery of social and political degradation: a government defined by 'chaos, division and a total and utter lack of empathy' and guided by the ethos that 'greed is good and winning is everything.' She warned that children had seen the country’s leaders 'emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists,' and she faulted unnamed people for recoiling from the phrase 'Black lives matter' — a description that plainly applies to the president."

So says the New York Times, in "Democrats Begin Virtual Convention, Hailing Biden and Denouncing Trump/Driven online because of the coronavirus, the program spanned the ideological gamut, from socialists to Republicans. 'Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,' Michelle Obama said."

I just want to talk about the substitution of the word "conclave" for "convention." Does it express what has changed about the event? The etymology of "conclave" is — according to the OED — the Lat "con-" which means "together" and "clāvis" which means "key." So originally it was a place that could be locked up. An obsolete early meaning is "A private room, inner chamber, closet." In the 1300s, it took on the specific meaning, "The place in which the Cardinals meet in private for the election of a Pope." By the 1500s, "conclave" also meant "Any private or close assembly, esp. of an ecclesiastical character." And that's it. So the NYT, in using "conclave," draws attention to how small and closed off this thing is. With a whiff of the ecclesiastic.