Choosing a date for the screening and premiere of Discovery Channel's The Presidents' Gatekeepers was tricky to begin with, as planners had to juggle the schedules of every living White House chief of staff and other Washington dignitaries. Planners settled on September 10, a day before the two-part series was to air, and booked the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium for the 400-person event.
And then an event that celebrated political figures of the past took a very current turn. News broke that President Obama was planning a televised address to the nation on his response to the political unrest in Syria, although the exact date had not been announced. Discovery executives did some quick political calculus: With Congress returning from a break on September 9 and memorials scheduled September 11 for the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, the speech seemed destined to fall on September 10, the night of their event.
"It was like, wow, we have a bull's-eye on our back," said Jeff Kaplan, vice president of global events and brand activation at Discovery Communications. "We knew there was no rescheduling. It had to happen this day, or it wasn't going to happen."
Betsy Clawson, the event lead, and a team of communications and government relations staff met and considered canceling the event, Kaplan said. Ultimately, they decided to incorporate the speech into the program by streaming a live feed onto a large screen during the reception.
The move meant the evening would have a strict timeline. The run of show included a step-and-repeat, pre-reception, screening, and reception. The president's speech was scheduled for 9 p.m., which was the one break planners caught. Anything earlier would have come in the middle of the program.
Another challenge was arranging the live feed, which required bringing in a satellite truck since the auditorium has no TV signal. Still another nerve-wracking element was that the feed would not go live until just a minute or two before it began, so Clawson had to arrange back-up sources.
The evening's hosts had advised guests that the speech would be shown so no one felt the need to leave early. As the speech began, Kaplan said the room fell silent.
"You're watching in this majestic building with real-life chief of staff as real-life political drama played out," Kaplan said. "Ironically it helped what the event was. To have the president come out and speak about a topical issue, it all made sense. It wasn't like we were showing a preview for the Deadliest Catch. In the sense that what we were showing matched what was very lucky."
It created a powerful moment, Kaplan said, and after the speech ended the crowd applauded while planners tried to bring the room back to an appropriate buzz.
"The tone of the room was right," Kaplan said. "You don't want people celebrating when the president is tailing about chemical weapons. It was tricky to keep the mood right."
The experience was a first for the seasoned event pro Kaplan but perhaps not completely unexpected for events in the nation's capital.
"You're always beholden to weather and other factors, but political unrest is not one I've wrestled with before," Kaplan said. "The other interesting thing is, if this event were in any other town or city, this wouldn't have been an issue. It was a perfect storm of variables."