Adam Edelstein

PRG's project manager Adam Edelstein, who headed up staging the event, agrees that there were many atypical challenges because of the security concerns."The coordination with the Secret Service was huge, as the security concerns were obviously paramount," he says."They expected most of what we brought in because I brought them [technical security specialists Don McGee and Mark Norberg] up to our facility in New Windsor, NY, to give them a better idea of what we were doing."

PRG provided all of the staging, mechanics and automation for the main stage, which included a motorized slip stage and hydraulic lift for raising and lowering speaker platforms.Both were controlled by PRG's Stage CommandÔ scenic automation system.PRG also built a 30' diameter, 16,000lb. capacity mechanical lift that raised and lowered the artists who performed during the event."This way they could draw all of the attention to the performers, and reset everything on the main stage for the speaker," Edelstein says."We primarily got involved to do the entertainment stage with the mechanical lift.But we ended up doing almost all of the mechanical and structural engineering in house with our engineers."

PRG was officially contracted for all of the staging only five weeks before the event."We did do some preliminary fabrication prior to that," Edelstein says.
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"We constructed the entire second stage on an overnight work call in between the end of the third night and the beginning of the fourth night," Edelstein explains."Most of that scenery wasn't even in the building until the day before because there was no space for it.That day started for me at about 4:30 am when I met those trailers out on Riverside Drive to begin walking them through the three security checkpoints as well as a final sniff by the dogs."

After a dinner break, the crew began construction."We took the first set out and swapped the new set in.The areas where we could actually bring things in at that point were very small because there had been a show in there for three days," Edelstein says.
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"It didn't show up [on TV] very well, so that worked very well," Edelstein says.

"The RNC offered us a terrific opportunity to showcase our scenic construction and automation services," said Adam Edelstein, PRG's production manager for the event.