Waves Moving Across Vienna

Austrian showcase conference Waves Vienna is moving across the city to a new home in the building that used to be the HQ of the country’s postal service.

The 3-year-old gathering started out at the crossroads of Western and Eastern Europe, planning to bring both sides together in Vienna’s Urania lecture theatre. By its second year it was quickly heading toward that goal, attracting 811 delegates – 19 percent up on its debut.

By then the conference slogan had become “East Meets West,” a point being rammed home by the setting up a sister gathering about 50 miles away in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava.

Shuttle buses ferried people between Waves Vienna and Waves Bratislava, taking about an hour to complete the journey.

“After having most of our venues in the 2nd district for a couple of years, we thought it would be fine to have a change as Vienna has so many great places,” Waves Vienna organiser Thomas Heher explained. “We also found the amazing Alte Post building that had been empty for over two years.”

Heher also found some suitable venues in the 1st district, which conveniently linked up with the conference’s tram service running along Ring Street from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

The speakers for the three-day conference Oct. 2-4 will be announced in mid-September.

The acts touting their wares include the increasingly popular Estonians of Tenfold Rabbit, Alexis Taylor from Hot Chip, Bad Weed, Ballet School, US Lights, and DJs from national radio station FM4.