Meeting Planner’s Notebook:

International Conference Centers are Wired and Ready

by Flo Conner, Meeting Professional Magazine

Finding Linz on the map might take a magnifying glass. Here's a clue: It's in Austria, about an inch to the left of Vienna. Soon, however, Linz may be known more for its technological innovations than for its proximity to the Austrian capital, thanks in large part to two high-tech conference centers.

The bustling city of 150,000 on the banks of the historic Danube is like many other international cities of its size: It is trying to shake itself of rapidly declining industrial trappings and take advantage of more lucrative high-tech service jobs. In the last 15 years, the city has successfully enticed high-tech companies into relocating there; the next step is to lure meetings that further the city's image as a center for technology and innovation.

Linz is among a growing number of international cities, both large and small, vying for a permanent niche in the growing high-tech meeting industry. Although not an exhaustive list --- new conference centers seem to open daily --- the following international cities offer a glimpse of things to come.

Design Center, Linz, Austria

"We're more than just international," says Hans Mixner, Design Center's marketing manager. "With our networks and links and our abilities for teleconferencing and real-time videoconferencing, our capabilities are now interstellar."

The center, for instance, has the capacity to broadcast such videoconferencing advances as virtual surgery in which physicians in one location consult via video with surgeons performing new procedures a half a world away.

An example of this technology will occur in the fall when a surgeon in Memphis, Tenn., performs telesurgery. Using robotics and an EDP screen, he will conduct head and spine surgery from Memphis on a patient in Linz. Surgeons attending a meeting at the Design Center will view the procedure by video hookup. ICOS Congress Organization Service GmbH, the Vienna-based meeting planning company organizing the Computer Integrated Surgery symposium that's sponsoring the event, chose the Linz facility because of its "extraordinary connections," says Wolfgang Fraundorfer, managing partner for the company.

"We can install the equipment needed anywhere, but Linz already has the infrastructure in place," he says. "It's more efficient and cost-effective than doing it yourself."

Although small by comparison to larger centers, the $100 million Design Center offers flexibility and access that make it popular with planners.

Under its trademark arched glass roof, the center's only limits to configurations are the infrastructure walls and a planner's imagination. Everything else from the furniture to walls to staircases is mobile.

But the center's claim to fame lies underground: A vast array of cable connections allows water, electronics, compressed air, telephones and network cabling hookups to flow directly from the floor to meeting rooms through "media channels."

"Media channels are a useful solution. We can configure a meeting any way a planner needs, and the connections don't require the expertise needed to run the cabling and wiring," Mixner says.

The perfect companion to the advanced Design Center is Austria's newest museum: the Arts Electronica Center, celebrated as the "museum of the future." The $20 million complex showcases such computer innovations as virtual reality and robotics to give visitors a taste of what will be commercially available in the next five years. For meeting planners wanting to be associated with that future, small meeting rooms and themed events can be arranged around the ever-changing displays in the five-story complex.

Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

The capital of Australia's Sunshine State is home to the continent's largest convention facility, with room for up to 6,000 delegates and exhibit space of 250,000 square feet. Among its sophisticated technical equipment and services are touch-screen controlled audiovisual systems, broadcast video and audio facilities, satellite conferencing, fiber optics and simultaneous interpretation.

Since its May 1995 opening, the center has played host to an impressive number of fast-lane companies, including Microsoft and IBM. And next year, the center will be the site of the international World Wide Web conference, which will bring together 2,500 Internet movers and shakers.

Its audiovisual system is among the most advanced. Used with in-house editing suites, clients can have quality promotional and training videos made on-site during their conferences, says Tina Croker, international business development manager for the Brisbane center.

And the facility backs up its capabilities with a knowledgeable in-house technical staff, which eliminates the need for meeting planners to hire outside consultants.

Edinburgh International Conference Center

Edinburgh, Scotland

To be on the technological map of the next century was the conviction behind Edinburgh's new conference center, which opened in September 1995. Although the $60 million facility had been on the drawing boards for more than 25 years before it was built, marketing manager Deborah Lidgett says the center was planned for the future as well as the present.

"We made a commitment of time, staff and money to stay state-of-the-art so that no one will say in five years 'that was then'," Lidgett says. "It's cutting edge now, and it will be cutting edge 20 years from now."

High-tech connections are de rigueur for the Edinburgh International Center, but its piece de resistance are two revolving theaters that offer almost instant flexibility for meeting planners. "You can have a main session, take a break, and within four minutes, two auditoria revolve from the main auditorium to form three self-contained theaters," Lidgett says. "Hidden stages can be preset so there's no set-up needed during the break."

The revolving-room concept, which Lidgett says is unique among purpose-built conference centers in Europe, allows for a 1,200-person main theater to break into smaller rooms.

Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie

Paris, France

Dazzling special effects are the hallmark of the Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie in the vast Parc de la Villette in northeastern Paris. It took more than $642 million to transfer a slaughterhouse into a state-of-the-art science complex and meeting facility. In the 10 years since its opening, the facility has established itself as a city within a city. The Cite is a perfect site for meetings, boasting two amphitheaters seating up to 930 people, eight meeting rooms for up to 85 people each, a 2,300-square-meter daylight exhibition hall and restaurants.

It has all the offerings of a more traditional conference center, audiovisual, teleconference, fiber optic, video transmission and simultaneous translation abilities. But it also offers planners something a little more cosmic: Meeting-goers can be "projected" into space as they watch graphic images flash across a 600-meter domed screen above them or attend a reception in the Geode, a movie theater equipped with on of the few hemispherical screens in the world (think IMAX with a curve).

Some of today's technological advances are new to planners now, but they won't be for long. Soon, these components may be routine on every planner's check list.

"Not every meeting needs such sophisticated networks, but they are a nice touch," ICOS' Fraundorfer says. "Clearly, they're a marketing tool to attract both exhibitors and attendees and a way for a conference center to stand out in the crowd."

Published in Meeting Professional Magazine

Flo Conner is a freelance travel writer whose travel writing has appeared in Meeting Professional, the Boston Globe, AAA Going Places, Successful Meetings, W Magazine, For the Bride, Streetmail and other consumer travel and business travel trade magazines.