Bringing 'Change' to Invesco, Minus the Balloons

Attendees Could See Fireworks At Obama's Acceptance Speech, Yet Production Won't Match Pepsi Center

by Brian Friel

Monday, Aug. 25, 2008


For Barack Obama's acceptance speech on Thursday night at Invesco Field, it's out with the old, in with the new. Obama will be surrounded at the 50-yard line by first-time delegates and young supporters as he calls for an end to Republican rule. The intimate insider feeling of conventions past will be replaced by an open-air gathering of 76,000-plus frenzied supporters--who will be encouraged on site to use cellphones and text messages to draw more people into the Democrats' campaign. And stalwarts who expect a balloon drop after Obama's oratory could get a fireworks show instead.

Yes, one of the casualties of the Thursday move to Invesco is the balloon drop. Deputy Convention CEO Travis Dredd said that balloons won't be falling at the Pepsi Center either, because they are traditionally associated with the acceptance speech. Plus, eco-concerns prevail at this green convention--although balloon vendors insist that their product is biodegradable.

"This is the first time I've ever heard of a convention without balloons," lamented local balloon man Larry Rimbert, owner of the Ambiance decorating company in Lakewood, Colo.

In keeping with the theme of "bringing down the walls" at the convention, organizers are setting up phone banks at Invesco for delegates to use to call friends and family back home, to encourage them to watch Obama's speech. They'll also get campaign postcards to mail, and attendees will be asked to use their cellphones to call and send text messages to build more support for the Democratic nominee.

"We're going to have a working meeting at Invesco Field," Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a convention co-chair, said on Sunday. "This is going to be about not only celebrating a great presidential and vice presidential candidate, but really starting the hard work that has to go on between Thursday and Election Day to make sure Barack Obama is the next president of the United States."

Obama will deliver his big speech on a round platform placed 6 feet, 6 inches above the playing field, smack on the numbers at the 50-yard line, according to David Hunter, director of media operations at Invesco. The platform will sit at the end of a thrust that will jut out from a large set of stages set up along the sidelines.

Special tracks were laid along the perimeter of the field to allow forklifts to operate without damaging the turf. The stage will be relatively minimalist; video screens are expected, but the production won't be on the scale of the Pepsi Center.

The National Weather Service is predicting mostly sunny skies for Thursday, with a high of 83 degrees and only a 10 percent chance of precipitation. Organizers are relying on luck--and faith--that the weather will hold.

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter told Convention Daily that his state has 300 days of sunshine a year. "We're praying for the kind of weather that we had last night here at [Invesco]," Ritter said Saturday, referring to the clear skies that greeted football fans on Friday night for the Denver Broncos-Green Bay Packers game.

The stadium will open to the media around 8 a.m. on Thursday, after convention planners' mad move from the Pepsi Center the night before and a subsequent security sweep led by the Secret Service. The program is set to begin at 5 p.m. local time and wrap up by 9 p.m.

The shift to Invesco Field added a few million dollars to the Denver host committee's fundraising requirements and forced planners to quickly prepare a logistical road map for prepping the football stadium. Work began on Saturday at midnight, after the football game ended. Crews planned to have the stage set up by Monday morning so that television networks could begin running cables to their camera stands.

A big behind-the-scenes move of workers and material is planned for Wednesday night--putting pressure on the typically long-winded Joseph Biden to keep his vice presidential acceptance speech short enough for the program to wrap up precisely at 9 p.m. local time. And complicating workers' efforts is another football game scheduled for next Sunday at Invesco between Colorado State and Colorado University.

"We're just trying to get it in and out," Hunter said.

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