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CHIC by the Numbers: Lots of Stuff
CHICAGO, IL (September 7, 2006) - The theme for CHIC 2006 was No Ordinary Day, and statistics collected from different sources show that no ordinary numbers were involved in making sure the students and volunteers experienced a powerful week of spiritual growth interspersed with lots of fun activities.
 Planning for the event began almost immediately following CHIC 2003 and involved thousands of hours in which every detail had to be discussed. How much water would be distributed? How many lights for Main Stage events. What number of audio inputs are needed? How will equipment be shipped? How many photographers and writers will be needed?
Despite all the planning, even leaders were amazed at the amount of work and logistics involved. “This was a lot harder work and a much bigger project than we thought it was going to be,” says Ethan Pagliaro, the CHIC Main Stage technical coordinator and a 1997 North Park University graduate. “A month out, I think all of us were wondering what were we thinking.”
Pagliaro was one of seven Main Stage crew leaders who slept on six bunk beds and a couch in a small room in the University of Tennessee arena throughout the event. Each of them averaged about four hours of sleep a night. They also went through one bottle of Febreeze. “It didn’t help much,” Pagliaro notes.
A snapshot of just the evening Main Stage events, provided by Pagliaro, provide some insight into the complexity of such a huge undertaking:
• Moving lights: 135
• Regular lights: 100
• Support trusses: 504 feet of steel holding 52 tons of gear
• Amps of electrical power: 1,500
• Professional commercial grade video cameras: 5
• Projectors: 6 with 38,000 lumens
• Audio inputs: 96
• Watts of power for audio: 35,000
• Video production crew members: 11
• Audio production crew members: 7
• Lighting crew members: 3
• Stagehands: 26
• Riggers: 6
• Cases of gear: 370
• Forklifts: 3 - “They became my best friends,” Pagliaro quips
All of the equipment was transported to Knoxville, Tennessee, in four tractor trailers. The lighting and audio equipment came from Nashville. The video equipment originated in Chicago.
 Heather McNeal, the event coordinator for conferences at the University of Tennessee, was responsible for making sure the school helped the conference run smoothly. She kept track of numbers that included registrants and how the school kept them fed and hydrated during the days in which temperatures reached nearly 100 degrees:
• Total Registrants: 5,498 (approx 47 percent male, 53 percent female)
• Total Adults: 1,022
• Total Students: 4,476
• Total Reporting Ethnicity: Asian, 72; African American, 180; Caucasion, 4,534; First Nation/Native-American, 55; Hispanic or Latino, 131; other, 168; no selection indicated, 358
• Total Registrants Reporting by Covenant Conference/region: Alaska, 118; Canada, 102; Central, 761; East Coast, 549; Great Lakes, 577; Midsouth, 34; Midwest, 818; North Pacific, 454; Northwest, 1,283; Pacific Southwest, 693; Southeast, 109
• Bottles of water distributed: more than 15,000
• Pounds of ice: 10,300
• Outdoor sack lunches prepared: 21,992
• Breakfasts and dinners served in cafeterias: 49,482
• Slices of pizza purchased: 12,912
• Hours on duty for lifeguards at the pool: 354.5
• Hours the Slip ‘n Slide was in operation at the recreation fields: 49
• Roll-away beds used: 670
• Signs printed: approximately 1,300
The happenings at CHIC were communicated on the campus and across the Evangelical Covenant Church on the Covenant website and the CHIC website.  Keeping people informed required several dozen people, according to Scott Peterson, the team’s director:
• Office techs: 2 – produced daily information sheets, prepared Power Point presentations
• Information booth techs: 12 - worked in alternating shifts of 6 hours
• Information booth managers: 3
• Videographers: 2
• Photographers: 2 professional, 2 assistant using 4 Nikons, 2 Canons • Archived photographs: More than 5,000
• Video editor supervising podcasts: 1
• Podcasts: 2-4 daily
• Web designer: 1 making several updates each day
• Art director: 1
• CHIC Council member who recruited team members, planned and coordinated effort: 1
• Computers: 1 desktop Macintosh, 12 Macintosh Powerbooks, and 3 PC laptops.
• Hours worked per individual per day: At least 16
The most important number cannot even be estimated, says Marti Burger, director of youth and family ministries - “the countless hours of prayer.”
“God was very gracious in giving us a great team,” Burger says. “Everyone was willing to do whatever was needed.”
To read stories and view photographs that were part of news coverage of this year’s event, please visit Covenant Home Page where links to the CHIC website content also will be found.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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