Amsterdam RAI officially opened its new RAI Elicium building on Tuesday 29 September 2009 with an impressive multimedia theatre spectacle. His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange and a thousand invited guests saw the Elicium’s guardian angel Elise light up the evening with a sparkling audiovisual performance.
http://www.raimedia.nl/m/magstream/onlinemarketing/eliciumnl/
By adding the Elicium to the pre-existing complex, the RAI can now justifiably claim to be ‘Europe’s largest conference centre’ in terms of the number of available rooms, surpassing well-known conference cities such as Berlin and Vienna. And the opening of the Elicium completes Amsterdam RAI’s six-year, 110-million-euro investment program in new construction and upgrades.
The RAI Elicium is the new contemporary face of Amsterdam RAI. Its striking design comes from the boards of the Dutch government’s former chief architect Mels Crouwel. As well as enriching the RAI itself, this innovative building is also a major addition to the Amsterdam landscape. The new futuristic structure connects the various parts of Amsterdam RAI and was built with the very latest environmental technologies such as a climate façade and thermal storage 187 meters below the ground. 
International focus
With the construction of the Elicium, the RAI makes a clear statement of intent when it comes to attracting leading events in Amsterdam. The organization has chosen for a qualitative expansion at its current location rather than a major new development of hall complexes. This allows Amsterdam RAI to increase its focus on facilitating the type of large, international, multi-day events that are of such importance to the Netherlands. “The combined proposition of the RAI’s superb location, the allure of the city of Amsterdam and the close vicinity of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has helped make the RAI one of the top three most popular exhibition and conference centers in Europe,” says Hans Bakker, Chairman of the Board of Amsterdam RAI.
Special categories
With the Elicium the RAI directly addresses this desire for community. The building comprises a ballroom, four floors of conference rooms and four floors of offices. Its intelligent layout and infrastructure (including lighting, air conditioning, IT facilities and furnishings) allow the top four office floors to be transformed into meeting rooms and boardrooms within a day. It is this flexibility that makes the RAI the largest conference centre in Europe with regard to room numbers and allows it to facilitate meetings in the ‘special category’ such as those organized by the World Bank or IMF. 
Wide appeal
Taking into account the 50 million Euros spent on the Elicium, Amsterdam RAI has invested some 110 million Euros in the renovation and upgrading of its complex and facilities since 2003. Now the RAI is very much ready for the future. Especially in these economically challenging times, the investment in the Elicium is proving to be of great value to the RAI.