Conference tech
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Accommodating the ever-growing membership of the Church at general conference was on the mind of President Gordon B. Hinckley when he spoke during the Sunday morning session on April 7, 1996.
Addressing a capacity congregation in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, he said, "My heart reaches out to those who wish to get in and could not be accommodated. About a year ago I suggested to the Brethren that perhaps the time has come when we should study the feasibility of constructing another dedicated house of worship on a much larger scale that would accommodate three or four times the number who can be seated in this building."
His words, of course, were fulfilled with the opening of the Conference Center on the block north of Temple Square for the April 2000 general conference.
Also included in his 1996 address were the words: "We recognize, of course, that we can never build a hall large enough to accommodate all the membership of this growing Church. We've been richly blessed with other means of communication, and the availability of satellite transmission makes it possible to carry the proceedings of the conference to hundreds of thousands throughout the world."
In his first address in the April 2000 conference, President Hinckley said: "These services will not only be heard by all who are seated in the Conference Center, they will be carried by radio, television, and cable, and they will be transmitted by satellite to Europe, to Mexico, to South America. . . . We essentially reach across the world."
So in one magnificent building, facilities were made available not only for the seating of 21,000, but also state-of-the-art facilities for the spreading of general conference to membership throughout the world.
The seating is apparent to anyone who visits the center. But only a small fraction of the technological facilities — such as cameras and microphones — are apparent. The rest are enclosed behind the walls of the public facilities. There are control rooms, studios, a technical operations center, and editing, duplication and recording facilities that would be envied even in New York or Hollywood.
Behind tinted glass at the back of the auditorium are staging areas where producers, directors and technicians control cameras, sound, lights — everything needed for the sights and sounds of conference sessions to be broadcast.
Other services for general conference include photo capture (still images made available, for example, almost immediately on the Church Web site for use by the media), sign-language and closed captioning for the hearing impaired, translation, teleprompting, recording and signal transmission.
All of this, as noted by President Hinckley, is in place to convey to the membership of the Church the messages and teachings of the prophets and apostles and the other General Authorities and general officers of the Church.
General conference is one of the most thoroughly covered events in the world. Besides video and audio broadcasts, it is available on video and audio cassette, DVD and CD, and can be listened to by anyone who has access on the Internet. Shortly after each conference, text versions of the talks are printed in the Ensign and Liahona magazines and are available at the Church's Web site www.lds.org on the Internet in text, video and audio format. The Church site has also archived several past general conferences.
The Church produces its own broadcasts of general conference. It is available on a few regular broadcast television stations such as KSL-TV in Salt Lake City. At least portions of the conference broadcasts are carried by about 1,200-1,500 cable networks. The Church satellite system makes the broadcast available in several languages to Church units throughout the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, South America, Europe and South Africa. Conference can also be viewed by those with home satellite dishes.
Finally, the conference sessions are recorded on videocassette and sent to units that do not receive satellite broadcasts.
E-mail: ghill@desnews.com
