Business space
Why Dublin wants to be your conference venue
WORDS | TONY WHYCHEF
ALTHOUGH DUBLIN’S NEW CONVENTION CENTRE IS SET TO OPEN IN AUTUMN 2010, the city’s other business venues are upping their game to offer the new venture stiff competition.
Irish sports fans should consider Croke Park Stadium, Europe’s third largest sporting arena. The venue itself has played host to U2 and Westlife, while the 5,000+ square metres of meeting rooms and exhibition space has accommodated the likes of Google. There’s also a four-star hotel just across the road.
If you want to lend your conference a more scholarly tone, then consider Trinity College, which offers modern multimedia lecture halls as well as fine quadrangle accommodation and an 18th-century dining hall, all at reasonable rates, in the city centre.
The Royal College of Surgeons presents a similarly venerable setting for business. This imposing 19th-century building has a series of rooms and meeting spaces. Though its Dun Library conjures up a mood of Victorian refinement, the college still has high-speed wireless internet access, air conditioning and full video conferencing facilities.
The Westbury, Fitzwilliam, Shelbourne and Merrion hotels all have five-star standard meeting and reception rooms available at competitive rates. Yet if you’re in the market for something a little bit more daring, try Number 10, a sumptuously furnished Georgian house on the banks of the Liffey. One of the city’s finest art collections hangs from Number 10’s walls, and its caterers used to work for Bono. Number 10 isn’t where you’d automatically unpack a PowerPoint presentation, yet it beats the city’s other entertaining spaces on sheer ‘wow’ factor.
THE CONVENTION CENTRE DUBLIN
+353 (0)1 856 0000 www.theccd.ie
CROKE PARK STADIUM
+353 (0)1 819 2300 www.crokepark.ie
TRINITY COLLEGE
+353 (0)1 896 1177 www.tcd.ie
THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS
+353 (0)1 402 2100 www.rcsi.ie
NUMBER 10
+ 353 (0)1 878 7416 www.no10dublin.com
