Overview : Venue : Participants : Schedule : Travel : Accommodation : Social programme : Rotorua Tourist Highlights : Registration : Organisers : Sponsors

Important note: February is summer in New Zealand.

The aim of the conference is to bring together researchers working in various inter-related fields involving symmetries of discrete objects such as graphs, maps, polytopes and Riemann surfaces, to introduce their approaches and discoveries to one another, and to promote joint research in and between these fields. To achieve this we will have a small number of keynote talks, several contributed talks, at least one open problem session, and ample time for discussions and problem solving.

The conference will be well-suited (but certainly not restricted) to those who have previously attended the SIGMAC/SIGMAP series of meetings in the US, Portugal and Mexico (every four years since 1998), the GEMS meetings (in Slovakia), the 4-yearly graph theory conferences at Bled (Slovenia), the AMS special sessions on Automorphisms of Surfaces, conferences in China on Group Theory and Algebraic Combinatorics, and the previous two conferences on the above topics in Queenstown in 2012 and 2016. Anyone with interest in automorphisms of discrete structures is welcome to consider attending.

The following people (so far) have been confirmed as invited keynote speakers:

• Anneleen De Schepper (Ghent University, Belgium) [Talk slides here]
  
• Dimitri Leemans (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) [Talk slides here]
  
• Joy Morris (University of Lethbridge, Canada) [Talk slides here]
  
• Primož Potočnik (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) [Talk slides here]
  
• Jozef Širáň (Open University, UK, and Slovak University of Technology, Slovakia) [Talk slides here]
  

Participants should aim to arrive in Rotorua by the evening of Sunday 9 February (or early on the morning of Monday 10 February), and the meeting will finish at lunchtime on Friday 14 February.

If you plan to attend, then please register as soon as possible, under Registration below.

Payment of registration fees is not required immediately on registration.
The final date for "early-bird" payment of registration costs is 4 January 2020, but we would like to know likely numbers well before then.
Ideally, we would like to know the expected number of participants by early November 2019.

All participants who wish to stay at the conference venue hotel should book a room (at special conference rates) as quickly as possible.
See below under "Accommodation".
No advance payment is likely to be needed, but the number of rooms available is limited and will decrease as the date of the conference approaches (so that the hotel can allow other guests to take the rooms that have not been booked).

The date for registration (4 January 2020) has now passed.
If you still wish to attend but did not register by the due date, then you should contact Marston Conder immediately.

All lectures/talks will take place at the Millennium Hotel Rotorua, which is a 4.5 star hotel just 5 to 10 minutes walk from the centre of Rotorua and the lakefront.

Morning and afternoon teas will be provided for conference participants (as per the Schedule below), and breakfast is also available at the conference venue for an additional cost of NZ$20 per person per day (payable directly to the Millennium Hotel if it is not already included in your room rate).

There are dozens of cafés, restaurants and bars within 5 to 10 minutes walk of the conference venue where participants can buy lunch and/or dinner. (These meals are not covered by the registration fee.)

We particularly recommend Eat Streat for its bars and restaurants. This is just 10 minutes walk from the conference venue.

A welcome function will be held on the Sunday evening at the conference venue, and a conference dinner on the Thursday evening at the historic Blue Baths.

The complete schedule is now available here.

Abstracts for all talks can be downloaded in a pdf file from here.

The quickest way to reach Rotorua is by air. There are a few direct flights each day from Auckland, Wellington and/or Christchurch, with Air New Zealand. If you are travelling to New Zealand from overseas, then we recommend that you consider asking for a return airfare to Rotorua (rather than to Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch), as this could be be much less expensive than booking the final leg (to Rotorua) separately. In fact you might like to check the airfares available through Orbit World Travel), the University of Auckland's travel supplier, which can issue airline tickets.

It is also possible to travel from Auckland to Rotorua (228 km) by car through scenic countryside in approx. 3 hours, or by bus in 4 hours (see InterCity bus service).

Also if you are visiting from overseas, you might or might need a visa to enter New Zealand.
See the Visiting New Zealand website for more details.

And (this is important) even if you don't need a visa, you may need an NZeTA (New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority) before you leave for New Zealand.
See the NZeTA website for more details.

Rotorua airport is approx. 9 km from the conference venue, and there are numerous transport options: bus (NZ$10 to $18), shuttle (NZ$22), taxi (NZ$30) or rental car.
Click here for details.

Note: 1 New Zealand dollar is approx. 0.60 Euros, 0.51 GBP, 0.66 US dollars.

A number of "Superior Rooms" have been set aside at the conference venue, the Millennium Hotel Rotorua, at a conference daily rate of NZ$195 per room, plus NZ$20 per person for breakfast.
These rooms have private bathroom, free wifi, a flat-screen TV, small refrigerator, and tea/coffee making facilities, and the above rate includes GST (Goods & Services Tax).
This hotel has a fitness centre, restaurant/bar, spa, swimming pool, and free off-street parking. Participants who wish to book a room at the Millennium Hotel should do that as soon as possible.

To make an accommodation booking at Millennium Hotel at the conference rates, send an email to Conference.Rotorua@millenniumhotels.com, stating that you are attending the conference SODO 2020.

The conference rates will apply until a few weeks before the conference begins, but the number of those rooms is limited.
Payment is not likely to be expected until the week of the conference, but the hotel might require a credit card to hold the booking.
There may also be other rooms available at the Millennium Hotel (at the hotel's publicly advertised rates).

There are plenty of other accommodation possibilities in Rotorua, near the conference venue, ranging from other hotels and very good quality motels to self-catering apartments, bed & breakfast rooms and backpacker hostels. For some of these possibilities, click here, or try booking.com or tripadvisor.com or trivago.com, for example.

• Welcome reception (including drinks and finger food), Sunday evening, at the conference venue
  
• Conference dinner, Thursday evening, at the Blue Baths.
  

Rotorua is a great place to visit. It is well known for its geothermal activity, indigenous Maori culture, sightseeing and all kinds of tourist activities.
Many possibilities can be found here. Particular highlights in and around Rotorua include the following:

• Te Puia geothermal and Maori culture centre (45-minute walk or 6-minute bus ride from the conference venue)
• Kuirau Park, a geothermal park (with free entry, 20-minute walk from the conference venue)
• Rotorua Museum and Government Gardens (less than 10 minutes walk from the conference venue)
• Polynesian Spa, a thermal spa complex (less than 5 minutes walk from the conference venue)
• Rainbow Springs Nature Park, with live native birds including kiwi
• Hell's Gate Geothermal Park and Mud Spa
• Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland.

• Hobbiton

Total payment should be made by inter-bank transfer, by the due date for the lower rates.
We recommend the use of TransferWise for bank transfer, as it has a low commission rate and can guarantee that
we receive the expected amount (in contrast to other transfer systems which often charge unexpected extra fees).
We will provide bank details once we have accepted your registration, and a receipt following payment.

If you wish to register for this conference and workshop, then please choose from among the above options,
fill in the form below, click on the "Submit" button, and then send the email that should pop up containing your details:

Your name Your affiliation/institution Your email address Brief title of your talk (if you wish to give one) Registration type (copy from above table) Additional person(s) for reception (enter number and type) Additional person(s) for dinner (enter number and type)

Note: The above form works well with the "Firefox" and "Opera" browsers, but not well with "Safari".
If pressing "Submit" fails to bring up an email window containing the details you have entered in the boxes,
or if you don't receive an acknowledgement within five days, then please just copy them clearly into an email to m.conder@auckland.ac.nz. Thanks!

Also, once again please note that you need to book your own accommodation: the conference registration process
is completely separate from the accommodation booking process.

• Marston Conder, University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Gabriel Verret, University of Auckland, New Zealand

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