Conference General Information

Safety & Hygienic Measures

Please keep 1.5m distance whenever possible, wash and/or disinfect your hands frequently and thoroughly, cough and sneeze into a paper tissue or the crook of your arm.
Try to maintain a list of the colleagues you had closer contacts to (e.g. chatting in the lunch or coffee break).
Wearing a mask is not required but it’s allowed if you feel safer or more comfortable. Masks are actually provided within the conference bag.
If you experience COVID-19 symptoms, please get tested asap. The nearest test station to the conference venue is this one. If your test is positive, please inform the registration desk asap.

Language

The official language at the Conference is English.

Dress Code

The official conference dress code is business casual.

WiFi

The Venue offers complimentary WiFi connectivity to all conference participants. Password(s) will be announced on-site.

Insurance

The registration fee does not include the participant’s insurance against accidents, sickness, cancellation, theft, property damage or loss. Participants are advised to take out adequate personal insurance.

Photos, Films and Video Recordings

Photos, films and video recordings of scientific material are prohibited. This applies in particular to recordings of the results presented orally or on posters, unless the presenter expressly permits this.
With registration, the organizer is granted permission to take photographs and films during the ASMS & SPSC 2022 and to use these photographs in connection with the event for public relations and documentation, analogue and digital. Every visitor can file an objection with the conference management against the publication of photographs that clearly depict him/her.

Mobile Phone Manners

As a courtesy to other attendees, please observe the appropriate mobile phone behaviour. When attending sessions, please turn off your mobile phone and other wireless communications or use the silent notification options. If you must take a call, please step out of the room rather than disrupting the event. Thank you for your cooperation.

Conference Venue

Michael Königshofer © Weitzer Hotels

The conference will be held at the Hotel “Das Weitzer”.

Grieskai 12-14, 8020 Graz, Austria
Tel. +43 316 7030
Website: https://hotelweitzer.com/en/

Set in Graz’s Old Town and overlooking the Mur River, this upscale hotel in a grand early 20th-century building is a 3-minute walk from art at Kunsthaus Graz and a 15-minute walk from “OPER GRAZ” opera house.

Directions to the hotels can be found here.

Travel Information

Please check carefully the entry regulations to Austria due to the COVID pandemic before start planning your trip and before registering to the conference:

https://www.austria.info/en/service-and-facts/coronavirus-information/entry-regulations

Travelling by car

Graz is located on the A2 and easy to get to: about 2 hours from Vienna, 4 ½ hours from Munich and 3 hours from Udine. There is a charge for using Austrian motorways and expressways. A ‘vignette’ toll sticker must be bought for all vehicles of up to 3.5 tons maximum permitted total weight – cars, motorbikes and light campervans are required to display a vignette.

Motorway toll | Vignette rates in Austria

Apart from the general compulsory vignette on motorways and expressways, in Austria there are also “special toll routes”. This applies to mountain crossings that are cost-intensive to build and maintain. The special toll can either be paid on the spot or by buying a video toll ticket in advance. The general compulsory vignette is not required on these special toll routes.

Special Toll Routes

Parking in Graz

Travelling by bus

Westbus

Eurolines

Flixbus

Travelling by plane

You can currently fly direct to Graz from Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Stuttgart, Vienna, Palma de Mallorca and Zurich.

In recent years the modern airport of Graz has become a major transport hub. About a million passengers fly into Graz every year. Visitors to Graz particularly appreciate the airport’s very close proximity to the city centre with good transport connections.

However, the list of flights on offer is constantly growing, so please check the Website Graz Airport.

Travelling by train

The main railway station in Graz is one of the most important stations in Austria and is not far from the Graz city centre, which can be reached by tramlines 1, 3, 6 and 7 in a few minutes. There are direct train and coach connections for example from Vienna, Salzburg, Linz, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Munich, Stuttgart and Frankfurt. You’ll find many other day and night connections and also special price offers on www.oebb.at or www.bahn.de.

Services at the station

Passport and Visa

A valid passport is required for non-EU citizens for entry into Austria and the European Union. An identity card is sufficient for citizens of EU Member States. Please consult your local Consulate according to your nationality for specific details.

Advance travel planning and early visa application are important, since entry to Austria with a visa is subject to more intense scrutiny than was previously the case. We highly recommend that non-EU citizens contact their local embassy to find out what travel documents they will need to visit Austria.

If you do need a visa to attend the conference, please apply for one as soon as possible!

For more information on travel requirements to Austria, please visit the following websites: https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/austria-visa

Letter of invitation

The Conference Secretariat will send you a letter of invitation upon request. The Organizing Committee would like to clearly state that the letter is only to assist participants in obtaining a visa or in their efforts to raise travel funds.

The invitation letter does not imply any financial obligations on the part of the Conference towards participants.

All participants of the ASMS & SPSC 2022 in Graz requiring an invitation letter for visa application purposes should request this as an option during the online registration. Letters of invitation will not be issued before participants have registered for the conference and payment of the required registration fees has been received.

Should your visa application be declined, you can send a request for a full refund of the registration fees to the conference office per e-mail before August 31, 2022. A scanned copy of the rejection letter for a visa should be attached to your request for a refund. For requests after August 31, 2022, the normal cancellation policy will apply.

Currency

The Austrian currency is EURO. Most hotels, restaurants and shops accept international credit cards.

Temperature in Austria

The temperature in the Graz Region in September averages 11-21 degrees Celsius.

Voltage

Austria operates on 220-240 Volts electricity. The primary socket types are Europlug and Schuko.

Accomodation

Graz offers a wide range of accommodation at different locations and prices, always with top-quality facilities and offering typical Styrian hospitality.

Since accommodation is not included in the conference and registration fee, participants are free to select their preferred accommodation.

Hotels offering special rates for ASMS & SPSC 2022 are listed below. Rooms can be booked directly using the reservation links provided below.

All rates are quoted per room and night and are inclusive of VAT. Please note that accommodation at these prices is available only for a limited number of rooms and for a restricted period of time so it is highly advisable to book your room as soon as possible. We also advise you also to check the cancellation terms with the hotel at the time of booking/reserving the accommodation.

Please note:

The City of Graz charges a tax for the promotion and advancement of culture of 1,50 Euro tourist tax per person/per night (many hotels include the tourist tax in the room rate).
Most hotel reservations require a valid credit card in order to guarantee the booking.

Hotel “Das Weitzer” (Conference Venue)
Grieskai 12-14, 8020 Graz, Austria
Tel. +43 316 7030
Website: https://hotelweitzer.com/en/

Michael Königshofer © Weitzer Hotels

Michael Königshofer © Weitzer Hotels

Located in the Old Town of Graz, “Das Weitzer” is just 200 meters from the Kunsthaus Graz art museum and a 5-minute walk from the main square.

Click here to reserve

Please note that the link above only allows to reserve a room from Sept. 5th through 8th. If you need a longer stay, contact the Hotel after completing the reservation process.

„Grand Hôtel Wiesler” (100 m from the Conference Venue)
Grieskai 4-8, 8020 Graz, Austria
Tel. +43 316 70660
Website: https://grandhotelwiesler.com/en/

Michael Königshofer © Weitzer Hotels

Set in a grand building overlooking the Mur river, this hip downtown hotel is a minute’s walk from both the iconic Kunsthaus Graz art museum and a tram stop.

Click here to reserve

Please note that the link above only allows to reserve a room from Sept. 5th through 8th. If you need a longer stay, contact the Hotel after completing the reservation process.

Hotel Daniel
(located at 1.5 km from the Conference Venue: 15-20 min. walking or less than 10 min. with the tramway)
Europaplatz 1, 8020 Graz, Austria
Tel. +43 316 71 10 800
Website: https://hoteldaniel.com/en/graz/about-the-daniel/

In a pastel-colored 1950s building, this hip hotel is next to Graz train station, a 16-minute walk from contemporary art at Kunsthaus Graz and 2.7 km from the baroque Eggenberg Palace.

Click here to reserve

Please note that the link above only allows to reserve a room from Sept. 5th through 8th. If you need a longer stay, contact the Hotel after completing the reservation process.

Tourist Information

Austria’s second-largest city by population, it received more than 630,000 visitors in 2016. This is a healthy number, to be sure, but the capital city of the southern Austrian province of Styria is still largely overlooked by foreign tourists.

Most chalk up Graz’s lesser popularity to its lack of glamorous history. Vienna is the capital, Salzburg was Mozart’s birthplace, and Innsbruck was the center of Europe when Emperor Maximilian I lived there in the fifteenth century. But even without the robust historical points of interest, there are plenty of reasons to add this city to your Austrian travel itinerary. Because while most of the country-built travel infrastructure around more historic sights, Graz has quietly marched on, slowly becoming the country’s hippest destination.

Graz has many faces. The Schlossberg, a lush mountain in the middle of the city with a bell-tower on its peak, dominates the skyline, but all around it is one of Europe’s best preserved Altstadts (or Old Towns), with a collection of structures that would excite any architecture enthusiast – think Renaissance (16th-century Landhaushof), Gothic (the 15th century cathedral), and Baroque (Mariatrost Basilica from the 18th century).

But being named European Capital of Culture in 2003 was the springboard for a more diverse skyline: Cutting-edge building projects like the blue, spaceship-looking Kunsthaus (designed by Peter Cook and Colin Fournier and dedicated to modern and contemporary art) and Vito Acconci’s multi-use Murinsel, a theater/cafe/playground island in the middle of the Mur River, became the city’s contemporary icons. The latter was renovated this year and now has a showroom dedicated to products by Styrian creatives. (At present, sculptural wood furniture by Graz-based designer Raimund Gamerith is being shown.) The Joanneum Quarter, the oldest museum in Austria and the largest universal museum in central Europe, was expanded in 2011 and is home to, among other cultural institutions, the Neue Galerie Graz. Currently on display: An exhibition covering two centuries of portraits, including Warhols, through February 2018.

More Information: https://www.graztourismus.at/en

(Source: https://www.cntraveler.com/story/what-to-do-in-graz-austrias-most-underrated-city; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graz)

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