What is your favourite conference venue?
Posted by Catarina Vicente, on 10 September 2014
Last month I was lucky enough to attend the Xenopus meeting, which took place at the Asilomar conference grounds, close to Monterey, California. This meeting was fantastic, combining great science with a great venue. As there is already someone lined up to write about the scientific aspects of the meeting, I thought I would focus here instead on the venue.
Asilomar is one of the best conference venues I have visited so far. The grounds consist of cabin-style buildings (with fireplaces!) in a pleasant wood, which include accommodation, conference room and cafeteria. Just across the road is the beach and the beautiful californian coastline, there is a swimming pool, and we are surrounded by nature: deer and squirrels in the woods, and whales that can be seen from the coast! Though its natural beauty is definitely a winning feature, what I particularly liked about Asilomar conference grounds was its relative isolation. Conferences are as much about the talks as the interesting discussions that take place in between. When a conference takes place in a big city, attendees tend to stay in different hotels and go their own way after the afternoon sessions, in search of restaurants for dinner. This reduces quite significantly the possibility of chance encounters and hence the opportunity to meet new people and discuss science! This was not a problem in Asilomar, as all the attendees stayed at the grounds and ate all their meals there. And as it was not in a famous world city, there was less of a chance that anyone would skip a session to visit a nearby world attraction! The serene and relaxing location, where you could hear the sea in the nearby beach, kept you could focus on the science and on discussions with the other attendees. At the same time, Asilomar is close enough to Monterey, so that those who wanted to see the local sights (such as the famous Aquarium!) could do so in the free afternoon. And particularly important if you live in the UK, there was that beautiful (and reliable!) californian sun.
This is, of course, my personal perspective, and you may prefer a conference that takes place among the excitement of a big city! What do you think makes the perfect conference venue? Have you been to any conference locations that you thought were particularly good? Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below or on twitter using the hashtag #BestMeetingVenue
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I agree, Asilomar is an excellent venue for just enough isolation in a beautiful environment. The Strategic Conference of Zebrafish Investors is also held there, as well as Mouse Molecular Genetics. The butterfly grove toward Pacific Grove is a particularly nice walk and a peaceful place for a quiet chat or some reading. Pacific Biological Laboratories still stands on Cannery Row (http://www.monterey.org/museums/CityMuseums/PacificBiologicalLaboratories.aspx).
The Xenopus conference 4 years ago was at Chateau Lake Louise, which is not only a beautiful hotel but was situated by Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies, with a short walk to a teahouse above the lake, and also to a glacier further up the pass.