Until the weather forced a change in plans, the 2012 DNC’s
open-arms approach was going to culminate on Sept. 6 in a full-day program at Bank of America, with “performers, speeches, and everyday Americans all part of the program,” Alan Fitts, the DNCC’s director of stadium operations, said about a month before the convention. “So programming will go on throughout the day. I don’t have a start time yet, but we expect crowds to be flowing in from early in the morning all the way until the president speaks.” The rain that washed those plans away actually dogged
the 2012 DNC throughout the week, including during Caro- linaFest. But it did nothing to dampen the inclusive, festive atmosphere of the convention. Wednesday morning offered a typical scene: The sky was cloudy but still bright, and crowds flowed steadily along College Street, from the con- vention center up toward Time Warner and back. Delegates, campaign workers, politicians, activists, volunteers, media people, police, and, it seemed, everyday citizens of Charlotte bumped past each other on the sidewalk, where vendors hawked t-shirts, posters, pins, buttons, sunglasses, caps, and other Obamanalia. A lanyard swung from almost everyone’s neck, inside and outside the venues, which only deepened the sense of being at a reunion where a fair number of the attend- ees just happened to be meeting for the first time. The only discordant note came from a vigil of anti-
abortion protesters broadcasting a steady harangue at the entrance to the convention center, but even that didn’t seem terribly out of place. Nor did a group from Code Pink situ- ated farther up College Street late that afternoon, wearing hot-pink feather boas and black top hats, chanting: “RNC! DNC! It’s all part of the oligarchy!” Because of course there would be protesters at a political convention determined to welcome everybody. “There are about one thousand special events that go on
during the convention — corporate parties, delegate events, that sort of thing,” said Mike Butts, executive director of Visit Charlotte, sitting at a window on the second floor of the con- vention center, overlooking the hustle and bustle on College Street. “Typically, if you work with a major convention, you might work with two or three different venues. This is work- ing with hundreds of venues. That took active work in getting them engaged in the process, asking them to hold onto their space while the DNC started to collect requests from differ- ent entities on wanting to be able to do special events. That was a little unique and something different.”
MOVING IN, BUILDING OUT For Visit Charlotte’s fellow meeting professionals at Har- grove, the 2012 DNC was also something unique and differ- ent. The Latham, Md.–based company has worked on plenty of high-profile events — including every presidential inau- gural since Harry S. Truman’s in 1949, and this year’s NATO