plenary Behind the Scenes in Boston

together…. Most of the next 20 to 30 minutes were just frantically [spent] trying to find people, because all the cell phones were shut down immediately. Just finding each other and making sure each other was okay.” Three of his wife’s sisters were close

to the first bomb and got knocked down when it went off, but everyone was all right. Then it was time to think about the MCCA. Voice service was down but texting still worked, and soon Rooney was receiving messages from staff at the MCCA’s buildings — including the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC) and, just a half-block from the second bomb, the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center. “Immediately during the chaos, the Hynes, like all of those buildings [around the finish line], began evacuat- ing,” Rooney said. “I knew that had started and wasn’t surprised. “The first reaction and question

on people’s minds is, are there more bombs? The two of them went off 12 seconds apart, but public-safety offi- cials, law enforcement were trying to clear the area. We all didn’t know, is it just these two bombs, or are there more to follow?”

A ‘LAW & ORDER’ MOMENT That was the first of many questions that Boston’s meetings and hospitality community would ask, and be asked, during a very long week in which three major conventions were coming to town — even as the city mourned the three people who were killed in the bombings, cared for the hundreds injured, stepped up security in public facilities and other prominent spaces, and hunted for the bombers. The bombings happened on Monday,

April 15. At the Hynes that afternoon, even as the John Hancock Sports & Fitness Expo was moving out, ASCA 2013 — the 2,000-attendee annual meeting of the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA), scheduled

16 PCMA CONVENE JUNE 2013

Staging Point A week after the bombings, the Hynes Convention Center served as a gather- ing place for people waiting to return to Boylston Street as police prepared to reopen it.

for Wednesday to Saturday, April 17–20

— was moving in. Boston Comic Con would follow on Saturday and Sunday, April 20–21. It was a busy week, and the MCCA couldn’t take any chances. Once the Hynes was evacuated, it was swept by bomb-sniffing dogs and declared clear. The MCCA also manages the 1,300-

car parking garage underneath Boston Common, less than a half-mile from the explosions, and it had that swept, too. “We needed to make sure that facility was clear as well,” Rooney said.

“We weren’t allowing people to come in. We were allowing people to leave.” The BCEC was relatively

the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), which manages Experimental Biology. She had just checked into her hotel when she got a message from someone with one of the participating societies and turned on the TV. “Thinking back on it now, I feel like it was one of those

quiet — it sits about two miles from the marathon finish line, and was expect- ing to begin move-in for Experimental Biology 2013 on Wednesday — but the MCCA had it swept just in case. A joint conference sponsored by six scientific societies, Experimental Biology was planning on upward of 14,000 attendees from Sat- urday to Wednesday, April 20–24, and its advance team was just beginning to arrive in Boston — including Marcella Jackson, CMP, director of the office of scientific meetings and conferences for

‘The first priority was public safety, among participants in the shows and our own employees. Had there been any credible threats or conerns, we would not have allowed them in the buildings.’

‘Law & Order’ moments, where you hear that dun-dun,” Jackson said. “I had to become very quickly the voice to [the six societies], to let them know what was happening in town vs. what they’re seeing in the media and on the news and such.” Information quickly

became the most valuable commodity in Boston — especially among the city’s meeting and hospitality pro- fessionals, who needed to fig- ure out how bad things were and what they could realisti- cally promise their groups.

“Of course you go through this range of emotions,” said

Patrick Moscaritolo, president and CEO of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau (GBCVB), who had just walked back to his office after a mara- thon-day brunch reception hosted by the general manager of the Mandarin Oriental, Boston, when he heard about the bombings. “How serious is this, how

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DAVID J. SCHACHNER