Six months before the Republican National Convention and those charged with pulling the nominating convention off say everything remains on track for the July 18 start.
"We're right where we thought we would be," said Convention CEO Jeff Larson. "It's a lot of planning that goes into four days but it's going to be four really exciting days."
Larson briefed the media this week on all of the moving parts involved in their planning, hotels, transportation, the arena.
Over at the Q he said they remain prepared for the conversion into a convention hall even if the Cavs play there in a game 7 of the NBA Finals.
As an example of the workload ahead his team estimated hundreds of miles of cable will be laid in the coming months ahead of the convention and the data and bandwidth that will be in place will be unparalleled.
During the 2012 RNC in Tampa he said that AT&T took what they did at the Super Bowl that year and expanded it by ten times.
"And they almost got to the last mile, they were on pins and needles on Thursday night as it almost shut down.as they got to that final night," he said.
The fourth floor of the old Halle Department Store is where the Committee on Arrangements has set up shop, the floor filled out with offices and cubicles for the ever growing number of employees coming into Cleveland to work on the convention planning and execution.
Larson said one of the unique things about Cleveland is for the first time since their convention in New York City in 2004 the arena is in the heart of the downtown within walking distance of the hotels, restaurants and bars. That's something that they hope will make it inviting for the visitors and for the locals to come downtown and be close to the history-making events.
"You saw some of that during the debate when 4th Street was packed. I mean the people of Cleveland really participated, and I think got a lot out of it and we're excited and I thought that was just a precursor to the big show that's coming," he said.
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