Jill and Joe Biden watch the fireworks outdoors at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, at the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention on August 20, 2020.
WILMINGTON, Del. – The level where Joe Biden will assume the Democratic nomination for the presidency, fulfilling a dream of more than 4 decades in national politics, sitting in portions in the back of trucks, already assembled, waiting to be unloaded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. .
It is precisely two weeks before the time when Ricky Kirshner, the manufacturer who has hosted all the Democratic conventions since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, had to call his trucks and turn them around. Hundreds of pounds of gadgets (screens, lights, audio-visuals) had already arrived in Wisconsin. One of his trucks, which arrived from across the country, was scheduled to leave that morning until Kirshner intercepted him and sent the driver’s tactile data for his new destination in Wilmington, Delaware.
A small Organization of Biden and party officials called for the Democratic conference to become almost entirely virtual in a morning assembly on August 3, two days before the deadline to start physically moving the device to Milwaukee, due to considerations of the coronavirus. The resolution of moving Biden’s acceptance speech to Wilmington, the news made public in a brief tweet through a Bloomberg News reporter, privately sparked an absolute fury to make plans and redo plans, and asked Milwaukee officials to apologize and then, of course, there was the speech factor.
They had no room, no audience, and two weeks to know the length and structure of a speech that purported to mean the beginning of a general election, the sweep of a candidate’s political career, and the combination of devoted fervor and what is at stake. that the country is projected in presidential campaigns, all captured through the weight of a massive, perfectly lit scene, with balloons and pockets of confetti and an arena full of delegates, elected officials and activists chanting the candidate’s call.
Kirshner’s production team regularly conducts conventions from a higher platform, the central platform of the camera, inside the room. “Then we felt the power and called the screen from the room,” he said in an interview on Friday. What happened here in Wilmington was different. “Half of our staff searched to pass out just to see it, see if that was the case. Actually, because we see it on TV like everyone else. We saw it, we played the music, and then it was like, “Well, let’s move on to watch it on TV like everyone else. “It’s a completely different feeling.”
Americans saw the finished product Thursday night as it was designed for television, an unprecedented technological feat led by many others across the country from Ricky Kirshner’s team, the conference committee and Biden’s campaign, ending with the candidate’s 24-minute speech. Dark and serious in height, the lens pointed directly at the camera in Biden, delivered with the pleasure of an Oval Office or East Room address, followed by a movie-flavored fireworks show.
“The country needed to see him as president, and the stage coincided with the moment: well-dressed flags, smart lighting, an eloquent but exaggerated scene,” said Greg Hale, a veteran Democrat who has produced occasions for almost every recent Democrat. Candidate. “Mission accomplished.”
But here in Wilmington, the result was a much more r-scene: a silence and a reminder of the conference that wasn’t, the one Biden didn’t have.
At 77, Biden delivered the ultimate speech of his life in a dark room in front of about 30 members of the press and a skeletal production team.
By the time the acceptance speech was moved to the Chase Center in Wilmington, there were already 4 versions of the scene: First, the original setting of the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, with a capacity of 18,000 people. He then hit COVID-19, and they designed a socially estranged conference, also at the Fiserv Forum. They were then given worse COVID and moved to a great level at the Wisconsin Center, a smaller place in Milwaukee. The most recent version, an even narrower room at the Wisconsin Center, was his last attempt to keep the conference in a battlefield state for Biden this fall.
Shortly after August 3, a new team of “advanced” workers, others who do the meticulous work, out of sight, to give an occasion the best look and feel on television and in the images, came to Wilmington, Biden’s hometown, to expand a fifth and final version.
Over the next two weeks, symptoms of their efforts gave the impression at and around the Chase Center, a giant event venue located in a tributary of the Delaware River. Within days, layers of a secure perimeter were erected, adding 5,000 feet of motorcycle mounts, 5,000 feet of upper black fence and 5,000 feet of concrete barrier, around the parking lot in a matter of days. Eight giant American flags, ranging in length from 10 feet to 15 feet to 30 feet to 50 feet, were hoisted in the air and attached to buildings. And just over 1300 fireworks shells were purchased before Thursday’s final.
Earlier this week, a giant tree that slightly masked a signal from the Democratic conference, a giant “D20” banner placed on the west side of the Chase Center, untied the night-in-morning print repositioned through a new pile of mulch. A day later, shrubs and flowering plants gave the impression in position of the tree. (Convention staff had only asked landscapers to prune the tree, not remove it, said a Democrat familiar with the incident.)
In Milwaukee, the ghosts of the original conference came here in the form of a small gift shop containing pieces such as Wisconsin pins and “The Cream City” T-shirts. Back in Wilmington, there were echoes of a city 800 miles away. On-site nurses greeted journalists and production staff every day with strong, friendly Midwest accents. They had been taken by plane from Wisconsin to the Health and Safety Testing Center, a ballroom at the back of the Westin Hotel in Wilmington, where conference attendees waited in line every morning for the 3 consecutive days required for COVID testing, the state on six-foot stickers. Apart. Each afternoon, cotton swabs were returned to the original Wisconsin labs for analysis, and the effects returned less than 24 hours later.
Symptoms printed with COVID guidelines, possibly done before things were so bad, pleaded with participants to “wear a mask when possible.” When reporters arrived in Wilmington on Monday, the “When Possible” had been excluded from the sharpie. A day later, he had covered the marker with white ribbon and written to the marker: “At all times.” Journalists tweeted over the sign. (There wasn’t much else to do, there was no color for their stories, they were compassionate.)
On Wednesday, a whiteboard gave the impression in COVID’s control room. “NO PHOTOS,” he told the black marker.
Biden accepts the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination on the final day of the Democratic National Convention at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, on August 20.
The conventions of the party are noisy and overflow with people dying to be in the room, all measuring the point of giving way through the backs suspended at any time around their necks. For either party, the casual, noted and invisible boato and melodrama point makes it one of the most curious occasions in American politics.
A widely shared clip this week resurfaced audio from the Democratic Convention room in 2004, where the director can be heard queuing for the birthday party at the level after John Kerry delivered his acceptance speech.
“Go balloons, pass balloons! Watch out for confetti,” he says as van Halen’s “Dreams” explodes. “Keep coming balloons, no more balloons, PLEASE! GLOBOS, GLOBOS, GLOBOS! We want balloons – tons! Bring them back. Everybody come. No confetti, no confetti, no confetti. All right, pass balloons, pass balloons, we want more balloons. ALL THE BALLOONS, ALL THE BALLOONS, GO ON. COME ON, GUYS, LET’S MOVE IT. Jesus! We want more balloons. I want ALL balloons to pass. WHAT A CONFETTI. VAYA confetti. I want more balloons. ! What’s wrong with balloons? We want MORE BALONES. We want you all down. Go balloons! Balloons. What’s going on with the balloons? There’s not enough to come down. ALL BALLOONS. Where the hell, there’s nothing falling, what are you doing up there? “
(While to be honest: “The balloons were also too slow in Philadelphia,” said a veteran conference member of Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech in 2016. “What you take is that they never fall”).
Journalists were looking to find out what the big moments would be in Wilmington. There were very few of them. On Wednesday, for about two minutes, while ready to deliver her speech by accepting Chase Cinput’s vice-presidential nomination, live audio from Kamala Harris’s microphone aired behind the scenes in the waiting room where journalists were waiting to enter the conference. Site. He whispered a line about Biden’s beloved deceased son, Beau, practicing his comments.
The next night, while Biden’s acceptance speech was awaited, there was still no silence.
Reporters waited in a giant ballroom called Wilmington Hall, 22,000 square feet with 24-foot-tall ceilings, the largest in the Chase Center. The level was brightly illuminated, framed through an electronic background with the logo “D20” royal blue, with 16 flags observing the podium.
Everything else black.
At the back of the room, a manufacturer spoke through a helmet with their colleagues in Los Angeles and Milwaukee. “Glenn in Los Angeles,” “Glenn in Los Angeles,” someone said, referring not to a studio, but to the living room where director Glenn Weiss worked barefoot at a folding table in his living room in Brentwood, California, surrounded by monitors. (Weiss, Kirshner’s longtime trading partner, had also led the BET awards for his program,” Kirshner said.
Just before 11 p.m., without a presentation or fanfare, Biden leveled up, led by a member of the production team. Then the level manager left, and only Biden in the dark, waiting for the lights to come on. He took a deep breath, the silhouette of his shoulders rose and then he recoiled, his hands together before him.
“Good night, ” he said.
“She Baker, a giant of the civil rights movement, left us this wisdom: “Give other people kindness and they will find a way.” Give them to other gentle people. These are words for our time.”
The hounds sat silently, banging on the keys of their laptops, throwing a small puddle of soft whiteness into the dark. The 22 seats for the hounds, in socially remote squares bounded by a blue ribbon on the carpet, represented only the public that night. Behind the scenes, his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, represented only the circle of relatives.
A sign on the wall read: “Capacity: exceed 3500.”
It was the saddest thing: no friends or family. “It’s a bit silly, he missed a genuine conference with his family,” said a staff member here this week. Another user on the conference team, a senior staff member, said the former vice president was ready: “He agreed to that,” the user said. “The vice president knew from May or June that this could have happened.”
Jill and Joe Biden watch the fireworks outdoors at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, after the Democratic National Convention on August 20.
Outside, fireworks exploded from the exit box and the roof line near Daniel S. Frawley Stadium, a nearby baseball box. The Biden watched from one level with the other part of the Democratic ticket, Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff, as the parked car sounded in support.
For the first time this week, a reporter tried to reach the Democratic nominee. “Mr. Biden, have you been tested for Covid 19?” he screamed.
“Are you kidding me, I hope?” An assistant to Biden screamed.
Back at Wilmington Hall, a small organization of workers leveled up to pose for pictures on the podium. Without the bright blue “D20” background still lit in any aspect of the level, no one would guess that the Democratic National Convention has just taken place. Production staff are already dismantling the level.
“It’s all right, ” said an assistant near the podium where Biden delivered his speech. “Who needs more injections before they start tearing this baby apart?”
They had to get out as soon as possible. A conference of Christian booksellers touched the morning. ●
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