Venue
The Expressive 2018 Joint Symposium starts one day after SIGGRAPH 2018 (Vancouver) ends and will be hosted in Room ECS.124. in the building of Department of Computer Science in University of Victoria, BC, Canada. Victoria is a short ferry or float plane ride from Vancouver (approx. 58 miles / 94 kilometers).
Travel to the Expressive 2018 from SIGGRAPH
Expressive 2018 is officially co-located with SIGGRAPH 2018 this year, and begins the next day after SIGGRAPH 2018 ends. There are a few ways to travel to Expressive 2018 from the SIGGRAPH Venue in downtown Vancouver.
- By the Sea-planes. The sea-planes takes off in downtown Vancouver, right besides the Convention Centre (SIGGRAPH’s venue) within walking distance and directly lands in downtown Victoria. There are two sea-plane operators that fly between Vancouver and Victoria:
- Harbour Air Seaplanes (https://www.harbourair.com)
- HeliJet (http://helijet.com/)
- By taking the regular flights operated by Air Canada, which fly from the Vancouver international airport (YVR) (http://www.yvr.ca/) and land in the Victoria International Airport (YYJ) (http://www.victoriaairport.com/).
- You may take a taxi or the SkyTrain from downtown Vancouver to YVR. The Canada Line Skytrain from the Waterfront or Vancouver City Centre station will take you towards the airport, but be mindful don’t hop on trains towards Richmond. (https://www.translink.ca/).
- After arriving in YYJ, there are car rental service, shuttle bus and city bus that runs between the airport and the Victoria city (http://www.victoriaairport.com/taxi-and-shuttle).
- By driving. Please drive toward the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal and cross to the Swartz Bay terminal on the island, from where you can take the BC-17 highway to get to the city and University of Victoria. As the ferry service could be very busy during friday and weekends, we recommend you make a Reservation with BC Ferries (https://www.bcferries.com/) to ensure a smooth ride.
- By taking public transit. You can ride the Canada Line to the Bridgeport station and take the 620 bus to reach the Tsawwassen ferry terminal, and board the BC Ferry towards Victoria. After disembark the ferry, take the 70 bus for downtown Victoria.
Travel to Victoria
The most convenient way of travelling to Victoria is by flight to Victoria International Airport. This international airport serves direct flights to Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Seattle, San Francisco, and many more destinations.
There are hourly flights (15 mins. duration) with Air Canada for passengers connecting through Vancouver airport (VYR). After you get off the flight, there are airport shuttle and taxi services that carries you to down-town and University of Victoria. If you missed an airport shuttle, regular buses are always available with $2.5 CAD per ticket and $5 CAD for a day pass. A number of routes of buses run to the university’s bus loop, as shown in the image below.
If you get to Vancouver first by air or ground transportation, there are the BC Ferries Connector shuttle services in addition to the regular buses to go over the Victoria-Vancouver BC Ferries. The shuttle services starts from either YVR airport or Vancouver down-town and directly goes to Victoria down-town without stopping.
If you are going by the regular bus services from Vancouver, then first get to the Bridgeport Skytrain Station in Richmond, take the No.620 bus to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal, and take the BC Ferries to Victoria (Swartz Bay). After you get off the ferry, take the No. 70 or No. 72 buses to get to Victoria down-town.
Drivers from Vancouver can directly proceed to the BC Ferries Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal and take the ferry to cross the sea, then take the BC-17 Highway to Victoria down-town.
If you start from Seattle, there are direct, passenger-only ferry connections from Seattle down-town to Victoria down-town (Clipper Vacations). If you drive from Seattle, please go to the Port Angeles ferry port first and take the Black Ball Ferry Line to go to Victoria.
Accommodation
As a renowned tourist destination, Victoria B.C. hosts many great accommodation options, particularly around the downtown and inner harbour areas. In addition to searching for accommodation using your preferred hotel-booking platforms, please also take a look at Tourism Victoria, an official tourism portal maintained by the city. Most hotels in the downtown area have direct bus connections to the conference venue.
Our conference dinner will be hosted in Delta Hotels Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort. Due to the small number of attendees of Expressive’18 we will only have regular booking prices with this hotel, but staying there will keep you close to the events in Saturday afternoon.
As the conference date is close to the September semester, on-campus accommodation is not available for Expressive’18, therefore please search for accommodation options around the downtown area of Victoria B.C.
If there are any difficulties in securing accommodation for the conference, or find transportation between airport/ferry terminal to your hotel, please directly contact the conference committee at expressive2018@uvic.ca.
Attractions
As the capital city of British Columbia, Victoria is a famous worldwide tourist destination. We hope you enjoy your stay in our beautiful city. Below, we list several most mentioned attractions around the city. The charming city offers much more than what we can introduce here, for more information please refer to Tourism Victoria and Wikipedia.
The Inner Harbour and the Fisherman’s Wharf
The inner harbour is at the heart of Victoria down town, with beautiful historical architectures such as the Fairmount Empress hotel and the Parliament Buildings. It also hosts a collection of shops, restaurants and pubs. Our Marriott Victoria hotel is also located here. Close to the Parliament Building you can find the Royal BC Museum.
Following the seaside road for the Fisherman’s Wharf, which is a marina destination with lovely float homes and the famous fish-and-chips.
The Butchart Gardens
The Butchart Gardens is probably the most well-know botany garden on the West Coast. Their stunning, never-wither flowers attract visitors all year round. The garden is accessible from exit 18 on the Highway 17; and there are bus transit (Route 75) available to the garden. Tickets are $29.90 plus tax. Please take a look at their official website (linked on the top) for more information.
Craigdarroch Castle
The Craigdarroch Castle is a historic, Victorian-era mansion, with walking distances and many bus routes to Victoria down town. The castle is accessible from the Fort street, which is also called the “Antique Row” of Victoria because the street features many antique and collectible shops.
Besides the castle is the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. The gallery features the latest contemporary art exhibitions with a variety of permanent collections, including quite a few pieces by Emily Carr.
The Finnerty Gardens and the Cadboro Bay
The Finnerty Gardens and the Cadboro Bay are scenic sites near the conference venues where you can have a relaxed walk and conversation. Finnerty Gardens is in the University of Victoria, just across the Ring Road. Cadboro Bay is about 15 minutes walk from the conference venue, which is a beautiful, well-maintained beach park with a community centre that has coffee shops, restaurants and a grocery store (Pepper’s).