Conference Venue
The Venue
The main venue is the Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium in UTown.
Address: 8 College Ave West, Level 2 Education Resource Centre, Singapore 138608.
UTown (or University Town) is part of the main campus of the National University of Singapore.
The map on this page has the conference auditorium, recommended accomodation options, main UTown cafeterias and the most relevant campus bus stops marked.
Commuting
Anyone arriving into Kent Ridge MRT station via the circle line (on the other side of campus from UTown) can take the free campus bus (the D2) to get to UTown. The NUS NextBus app is freely available on the Apple App store and Google Play and has the map of free campus shuttle routes with live scheduling updates (there's no printed schedule at the bus stops). Monday is a public holiday and the first D2 bus in the morning will be too late make it to the venue on time. Consider one of the public buses instead (see below). Tuesday onwards should be fine.
There are several regular public bus route options from Buona Vista and the One North area where several of the conference accommodation options are located (such as the 198, 196 and 33). Expect a 15-20 minute commute. If you are staying in one of the hotels in the West Coast Road area there is a similar commute time via public bus (such as the 188 and 183).
Google maps is your friend for bus routes and live schedules for the public system (not the NUS shuttle). The Moovit app also comes highly recommended for routes and live updates (for both public and the NUS shuttle)and is available on the Apple App store and Google Play.
For those staying in the Park Avenue Rochester, they will be providing a bus to and from the venue. Thus bus will leave the hotel for the venue at 8.45am everyday. The return bus will leave from the venue at 5.45pm everyday (except Wednesday when it leaves at 5.30pm). It's still easy to make your own way via public transport if this bus doesn't suit you at the time.
Eating in UTown
Here's the NUS website on food options in UTown if you're curious.
There are two main food centres on the UTown campus for lunch during the conference: Flavours@UTown and Town Plaza. Each contain stalls with many different cuisines. There should be plenty of options for eating vegetarian, halal and so on though ingredients are not often listed so it may be worth double checking if a certain dish is vegan friendly for example. Meals typically cost between 3.5 to 9S$. Most stalls do not accept card payment. You will either need cash (there is an ATM nearby) or an app such as Grab to pay (see Capra in Singapore for more info on going cashless in food centres).
In addition to the food centres, there are food chains such as Subway and Starbucks and several other restaurants (all of which do accept card payment). Of course, expect to pay more in restaurants than in the food centres.