Best congress centre finalists announced

AIPC, the International Association of Congress Centres, has released the 16 finalists for this year’s Apex Award competition for ‘World’s Best Congress Centre’.

The 16 finalists for 2004 are:

Aberdeen Exhibition & Conference Centre
Palau de Congresos de Catalunya, Barcelona
Belfast Waterfront Hall
Bregenzer Festspiel- und Kongresshaus Gmbh
Brighton Centre
Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre
Cairns Convention Centre
International Convention Center Durban
GÃƒÂ¶teborg Convention Centre
Balai Sidang Jakarta Convention Center
m:con – Congress Center Rosengarten, Mannheim
Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre
ICM – Internationales Congress Center München
Sandton Convention Centre
Piramide de Arona, Tenerife
Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre

The judging of competing centres will be done on the basis of how well identified clients rate each centre as evaluated by the Apex Award team. The criteria address a series of factors including congress facilities, project management, catering and technical capabilities, and result in a collective score that represents the best overall performer.

“This year’s competition is taking place with new qualification and evaluation criteria that have made the competition even more rigorous than before, so we are very pleased that so many entrants have met the first stage successfully,” said AIPC president Barbara Maple. “As always, this competition is based entirely on client evaluations, which mean that the results are a true measure of quality performance and help us recognise excellence in our industry.”

The Apex Award winner will be announced on August 4, 2004 at the AIPC Annual Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. Previous Apex Award winners have been the Palacio de Congresos y de la Musica de Bilbao in Spain, the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre in Canada, the Melbourne Exhibition & Convention Centre in Australia and Congress Innsbruck in Austria.

For more information: www.aipc.org