Adelaide Convention Centre is almost ready for the new millennium. Recently, the southern Australia facility upgraded all systems to make themY2K compliant, and is now investing in a building project that will ensure that it meets its clients' space needs well into the next century: Plans are underway to open a new three-level convention center and exhibition hall in June 2001 that will almost double the facility's current capacity of 3,000 delegates.

Connected to the existing building, the addition will add about 90,000 square feet of column-free exhibition space--bringing the total to nearly 124,000 square feet. The new space is designed for flexibility, and will be divisible into smaller meeting rooms and break-out areas. An atrium foyer, and break-out rooms facing landscaped courtyards, offer delegates beauty as well as functionality.

The center has hosted such events as the Oracle Open World & Developers Conference last November, and has taken steps to make sure it can meet technology meetings' requirements. Wired with a fiber-optic network that leads directly to Telecom Australia, the facility has ISDN lines, routable anywhere in the center; category 5 computer cabling is also available. Equipped for videoconferencing and satellite broadcasts, the center sports a satellite dish, as well as analog audio and video cabling to all halls and meetings rooms. Perhaps best of all, the center accommodates the various video formats used worldwide--including VHS. And there's a staff trained to help you.

"We are very different from most centers, in that we have house technicians who are trained and licensed to cable power, data, and telecoms," says Michael Smith, director of technical operations. "If a client asks for 25 telephone lines in meeting room 10, we wire it for them. If they ask for fiber in Hall B, we run it for them. If they want 256 Kbps ISDN in one hall and 128 Kbps in another, we run it."

Accessible via a direct flight from the U.S. to Sydney, followed by a one and a-half-hour flight west, Adelaide is situated on an ocean inlet along Australia's southern coast, and the area offers attractions ranging from theaters to bushlands. For more information, contact Boyd W. Christenson, business development director, North America at (651) 690-9499; bwchris@ix.netcom.com.