Behind the scenes at the Tech.Ed keynote

I’s fascinating to be part of the Tech.Ed keynote and walk-in show production and watch just how many different things have to be coordinated.  In addition to the stage and set design, lighting, video placement and view orientation (where to put the seats so that everyone can see the stage) there are many many strands that have to come together.

All of the speakers, demo people, assistants, script writers, coordinators and production team need to be backstage.  That means backstage passes.   Which means the registration codes need to be changed so we can track how many people will be backstage.

The passes need to be designed, and security need to be briefed so that they let the correct people with the correct passes backstage.  The videos, sounds, and back up hardware and process needs to be installed, loaded tested. What if one bulb bursts in the projector for example.  How many seconds delay is acceptable?  Where do we place the lights? The podium? The screens? The repeater screens?  Who makes the final decision?

The timings need to be tight.  Really tight.  The walk in session needs to finish bang on at 15:29:30, ready for the keynote announcement to roll.  The keynote must finish bang on time, ready for everyone to get to the Berlin wall celebrations.  Each part of the script needs to be tested.  This section will run for 180 seconds, roll video.  video for 240 seconds, cue voice over, cut to main speaker etc etc.  I now know what it must be like for TV acting.  This is so tightly choreographed, rehearsed, practiced, consulted, re-written, feedback, discussed.  All for a 90 minute presentation.

It’s amazing.  And I’m involved in decisions that I’ve never taken before.  Will there be clapping?  thigh slapping? choreographed audience participation? Shouting? Singing? (please no!)  how about a quiz?  Shall we get some audience members on stage? What swag or giveaways shall we have.

All of this is carefully planned, thought out and structured so that everything runs totally smoothly from 3pm November 9th.

Which isn’t very far away now.

And I’m not in Berlin yet – time is running short now and we haven’t all come together for rehearsals.  So far all of this has been done electronically.  By email and phone calls.  And it’s all coming together perfectly. And it’s amazing.

I’ll blog more over the weekend from Berlin with some pictures of the rehearsals and the build of the Tech.Ed event so you can see how something as huge as this is built in a couple of days.

Off to Berlin!…