Venue University of Liverpool

The conference venue

Teaching Hub 502, University of Liverpool, Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L69 3GR is next to the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. It is very near to the Computer Science department of the University of Liverpool in the Ashton building and the Victoria Gallery & Museum, which has a ground floor cafe in a pleasant architectural setting. You can find a map with the conference venue, and the locations of all of the restaurants booked in the evenings, below on this page.

Inside Hub 502

On the ground floor, you can find the building’s reception/caretakers area, a lockable room for luggage storage for conference participants, as well as the flexible teaching room, Flex 1, which is being used for the joint VLHCC-PPIG Graduate Consortium. The whole of the first floor is reserved for the entire week, and this is where the rest of the event rooms are (the workshop, tutorial, the VLHCC and PPIG conferences). All of the conference rooms have HDMI support, so bringing HDMI compatible connectors is the recommended option if needed for conference presentations using your own laptops.

Registration location (and event start times)

Please follows the signs to go to up to the first floor of Hub 502, where the event registration and help desk will be in the main social space. Registration times will be: 8.00-9.00 am on Mon and Tues; 8.30-9.00 am on Wed, Thurs and Fri. Event start times will be: 9.00 am, except for the Graduate Consortium on Monday which starts at 8.45am. Wi-fi: a password and instructions for logging into the free wi-fi will be given to you at registration.

Conference catering locations

All food and drinks during breaks and lunch will be provided in the social space of the first floor of the venue, and the adjacent Flex 2 room will be made available from Tuesday-Friday for additional seated space for lunches if desired. Please note that tea and coffee will be first served at the morning break time, so we do suggest that you pick up some yourself on the way if you are in need early in the morning. There are plenty of nearby coffee shops and cafes. There is a water fountain at the venue so water will always be available.

Social events locations

On Monday 2nd September, the Graduate Consortium dinner will be held at Ma Boyles, which is about a 30 minute walk from the venue and is close to the waterfront area, so the plan is to set off on foot from the Hub, walk through the city and stroll around the waterfront until dinner time. The workshop and tutorial dinner will also be held on Monday 2nd September, at the Philharmonic dining rooms, which claims to be “The most ornate pub in England”. It is less than 10 minutes’ walk from the conference venue, down Mount Pleasant and on the famous Hope street, along the route between the two cathedrals in the city (the Metropolitan and the Anglican).

The VL/HCC welcome reception, on Tuesday 3rd September, will be held at the hub 502 venue straight after the day’s sessions end. This will be a drinks and canapés reception, so there could be an opportunity for you to explore some establishments/eateries in the city afterwards if you wished to do so. However, there could well be enough food during the day and enough canapés provided to not need to do so!

On Wednesday 3rd September, the VLHCC banquet is to be held at the fifth-two space of Hope Street hotel, an event space with two lovely terraces, one overlooking the rooftops of Hope Street and the Metropolitan Cathedral and the other, looking out towards the liver birds, River Mersey and to the Welsh hills.

The PPIG conference dinner will be held on Thursday 4th, also at the Philharmonic dining rooms. The name gives it away - there are of course some musical references for the so inclined PPIGers - the Phil stands diagonally from the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, it’s well known for its musically themed decorations, and Buddy Holly and Paul McCartney have both performed there!

Sports facilities

For fitness needs, if walking around the waterfront, around town, and to the conference venue is not enough exercise (please be aware that Brownlow Hill is indeed a hill), the venue is also next to the University of Liverpool Sports and Fitness Centre, which has a gym and a pool that can be used by visitors for a small fee.

Cash machines

Cash machines are available by entrance to Starbucks next to the Guild of Students and the Tesco Express on Brownlow Hill.

Contacts

For queries about local issues, please contact either the general chair Andrew Fish <Andrew.Fish@liverpool.ac.uk> or the local chair Alexei Lisitsa <A.Lisitsa@csc.liv.ac.uk>