World Travel: Convention Volunteering

Convention wraps up at Invesco Field for Obama's acceptance speech; energy, enthusiasm and optimism prevail

The 2008 Democratic National Convention closed with a bang -- of fireworks, that is. Delegates, guests, politicos, media, celebs, security and we volunteers moved from one sports venue (the Denver's Pepsi Center, an arena built for basketball and hockey) to another (Invesco Field at Mile High, the awkardly named but imposing football stadium nearby), where there was also room for tens of thousands of attendees from "the community."

For us media distribution volunteers, it meant very long work day. We had to be at the Colorado Convention Center at 9:00 to pick up credentials, which included a lot of waiting around. I was on a bus at 7:30 a.m. Then by noon, we transferred to Invesco Field, where we also did a lot of waiting around -- but I did manage to get onto the field with a borrowed "Floor Pass." We had fewer distribution venues for the speech transcripts but security was even tighter, the elevators even more crowded and the distances greater. With longer speeches but fewer speakers, there was a lot of waiting around in a windowless room until it came time to distribute the text for Barack Obama's much-anticipated acceptance speech.

The public was admitted after 3:00, and the lines were imposing. People streamed in steadily, enduring the slow pace through the security screening station (set up in the white tent, below). Some sat down and wouldn't move. Others saved seats for more family, friends and colleagues who might still be in line or were milling around, buying food or souvenirs. By the time Obama's scheduled time approached, there was hardly an empty seat to be found in this huge 75,000-seat stadium.

Even though Stuart Shepard, director of digitial media for an arm of Focus on the Family, a Colorado Springs-based evangelical group, reportedly produced a video asking Christians to pray for torrential rain, during Barack Obama's acceptance speech, the evening could not have been nicer. If rain would have demonstrated God's objection to Obama's candidacy, the wonderful warm, windless summer evening must have been a sign of the Almighty's approval of the Democratic nominee.

Some people thought that the Doric colonnade that served as a backdrop for the podium was a bit much, but after all the day's speakers and entertainers were finished, it was a suitable setting of Obama's acceptance speech as a presidential nominee -- and it made the brief fireworks display that followed his speech possible. After all, you can't have a balloon drop in a stadium that is open to the sky.

Celeb Sightings

In addition to the well-known people pictured below, I saw (but was too close to photograph) Wolf Blitzer, George Stephanopolis and Oprah Winfrey. Here are the ones I did capture with my camera:

I photographed Ted Koppel (below) as we were leaving the stadium floor at the same time. Then, since we were going in the same direction, I hustled to catch up with him to tell him how much I enjoyed his China series on PBS and how much I preferred the old single-subject "Nightline" format when he was the host. He said, "It's now for 32-year-olds." Then, we reached the ABC area and he introduced me to two "Nightline" producers. I said, "I know I'm not your demographic, but I preferred the old format." I didn't have a chance to add, "The current format is for people with the attention span of fruit flies." So there!

I didn't get to see Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show," but I did see the crew hanging around and horsing around. Rob Riggle was in the mix somewhere.

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who had ample reason to be proud of the manner in which the Mile High City hosted this convention -- and relieved that it all went so well.