TALK ABOUT A TOUGH TASK
Behind the ‘crazy’ preparation for TED Talks
It takes an army to build the TED Talks community inside the Vancouver Convention Centre.
The elaborate main theatre alone requires a crew of 225 — framers and finishing carpenters drawn from across the province — to assemble the “pop-up” structure of 8,000 Douglas-fir-timber components, a process that takes 154 hours, “give or take.”
“It’s a pretty crazy schedule, but it seems to happen every year somehow,” said Patrick Wallain, the Vancouver-based structural engineer who acts as project manager for Nussli Special Events (Canada). Their deadline is Sunday night to have everything ready for TED Talks to begin Tuesday.
The purpose-built theatre was created to fit inside the convention centre’s 40,000-square-foot main ballroom when TED brought the conference to Vancouver in 2014 from its previous home in Long Beach, Calif. Designed by New York architect and longtime TED attendee David Rockwell, the goal is to create an intimate cocoon around the stage with raked seating that puts everyone no more than 25 metres away from speakers.
It is the stage where Elon Musk mused about his futuristic hopes for space travel in 2017, where Al Gore enthused about humankind’s ability to win the battle against climate change in 2016 and where CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden appeared via video conference for a talk in 2014.
“It’s a very important project for Vancouver,” Wallain said of the TED job, since it brings together some of the most important people in the world and puts a spotlight on the city.
So Wallain and his crew put a lot of care into maintenance work on the 150,000 board feet of plywood and glue-laminated components (the equivalent of five 2,400-square-feet houses) that make up the theatre structure.
“There’s a lot of Pacific Northwest wood in there,” Wallain said.
Components are sanded and refinished to keep them looking pristine and maintain the pleasing tang of Douglas fir.
Any joints that are worn or damaged get replaced to maintain its structural integrity before being packed into 75 semi trailers to be trucked from storage on Annacis Island to the Convention Centre.
TED’s top executive, Chris Anderson, was enthused about the theatre’s condition during a media conference call earlier this week.
“I’m told it’s in great shape, it should be good for years to come,” Anderson said.
TED arrived in Vancouver initially with a two-year commitment, but in 2015 stretched that to another five. And five years in, Anderson said TED has still “barely scratched the surface” of the venue’s potential.
TED comes with a steeper price tag this year — US$10,000 for a ticket versus US$8,500 last year, or US$25,0000 to be a sponsor — but the organization is still billing it as sold out on its website, with some 1,500 expected to attend.
“We are very much committed to Vancouver,” Anderson said. “We don’t have any plans to move it any time in the imaginable future.”
That pop-up theatre, however, does have to move back into storage.
Wallain said his crew will start dismantling the components not long after the conference ends at 12 p.m. on Saturday in a 60-hour race to have the ballroom empty again by midnight Monday.
We are very much committed to Vancouver. We don’t have any plans to move it any time in the imaginable future.