First Major Convention in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

In the aftermath of a devastating hurricane, evacuees were instructed to gather at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center to await help and rescue. The Superdome was filled beyond capacity, leaving at least 25,000 people to huddle in the massive event center. The overcrowded conditions and lack of resources devastated lives displaced by the disaster. However, the resilience of the New Orleans residents would eventually bring recovery and desperately needed economic opportunities.

The first major convention to return to the city was for the American College of Cardiology. While much of the city was ready for business, much of the infrastructure was still lacking. Conventions of this size require dozens of trucks, flights for crews, hotel rooms, and vendors that support the building of the event. Sections of the convention center were still closed to the public as spaces were cleaned and restored to operations. The airlines had shifted from thousands of daily flights to fewer than 100. Roads into New Orleans were also badly in need of repair, and equipment damaged in transport was all too common.

My role on this project was the Regional Director for all Graphics Production for GES, the Convention General Contractor responsible for building the event. Not only did we need to produce all of the graphics for the event itself, the logistic challenges also meant we had to build a graphics shop on the Trade Show floor to handle orders lost due to gaps in the infrastructure for the still-recovering community.