Behind the scenes at the LHC inauguration

On 21 October the LHC inauguration ceremony will take place and people from all over CERN have been busy preparing. With delegations from 38 countries attending, including ministers and heads of state, the Bulletin has gone behind the scenes to see what it takes to put together an event of this scale.

In building SMA18 a metamorphosis has been taking place. Since February this year a dedicated team has been busy transforming what was once a workshop into a ceremony hall fit for VIPs.

After emptying the building of equipment the team started work to build the stage for the ceremony. Fifty concrete shielding blocks were borrowed from CERN experiments, each weighing over 7 tonnes, and arranged into platforms from which the speeches will be made. The 3600 square metres of flooring had to be repainted, and seating added for the 1500 guests.

A fitting location for the inauguration ceremony, SMA18 is where thousands of superconducting magnets were assembled and tested for the LHC. For Lucio Rossi, who is project leader for the inauguration day, it is a building he knows very well. Also group leader of Magnets, Cryostats and Superconductors, Rossi, together with his team, has spent the last seven years working there to assemble and test the LHC’s 1746 magnets.

It may seem strange that Rossi was selected to head up the inauguration day, but there was logic behind the decision. "One of the reasons I was chosen," said Rossi, "was because after the LHC was switched on people thought that I would have less to do." He is now, of course, one of busiest people at CERN. Since the incident in Sector 3-4 his team have been working as hard as ever to address the problem.

For Rossi, as for all of us, the incident came as a huge shock. But it has not affected the plans for the inauguration ceremony, nor the commitment of the organisational team. "The best medicine is work itself," said Rossi, who is now working tirelessly to both repair the affected area and to organise the inauguration ceremony.

The inauguration task force totals more than fifty people from many different departments. But it’s a team that works well together, as proved by the hugely successful open days earlier this year. Since then it’s been non-stop work to organise the ceremony. "It’s been getting more and more intense," said Mauro Nonis, leader of the Facilities Management group. "The major problem is that we only have about half an hour to transport over 1000 people!"

On the day twenty shuttles will be in place to transfer guests from the car parks on the Meyrin and Prévessin sites to the ceremony hall. The arrivals of the delegations will have to be timed to perfection, with just two minutes between each group. After greeting the DG, they will be shown to their seats by one of a hundred CERN personnel who have volunteered to usher at the ceremony.

The main entertainment at the ceremony will be Origins, a specially commissioned multimedia show. Created by photographer Frans Lanting, the show charts the history of the Universe from the Big Bang to the present day, including imagery from CERN’s own experiments. Geneva’s Orchestre de la Suisse Romande will play the music composed by Philip Glass.

Behind the event concept is Paola Catapano, "It has been quite a rush," she admits. As well arranging all the entertainment for the ceremony, Catapano has also been working on an exhibition called Accelerating Nobels. With a photographer, she interviewed 23 Nobel laureates in accelerator physics. Rather than a conventional interview, she asked them to draw their discovery. "I told them to imagine that I was a five year old and to explain their theories using pictures," said Catapano. The laureates then posed with their drawings for a series of portraits, which are on display in the ceremony hall.

Catapano also arranged another of the highlights of the ceremony, the molecular buffet, an extraordinary amalgamation of high gastronomy and physics. Chef Ettore Bocchia has collaborated with the physics and chemistry departments of Parma and Ferrara Universities in Italy to create a scientific feast of Italian cuisine, optimised for both taste and health. For dessert forty CERN volunteers will be preparing ice cream using liquid nitrogen, as might be found in CERN’s own accelerators. In total 16,000 individual dishes will be prepared for the buffet, so fingers crossed there will be some left over for the early arrivals at the LHCFest!

But in case you arrive late don’t worry, there will be plenty to eat for the 3000 CERN staff, users and personnel who are invited to the LHCFest. Three different catering companies and seventy waiters will be serving both hot and cold food.

The inauguration team insisted on having the LHCFest on the same day as the main ceremony. "It is a chance to thank all the people who have worked so hard to build the machine and the experiments," said Rossi. "People who have worked silently for the good of the Organization." The LHCFest will take place in the ceremony hall once the official inauguration has finished. With much of the same entertainment as the official ceremony it should be an evening to remember.

The entire ceremony will be broadcast live between 2pm and 6 pm. You can watch it in the following auditoriums:

- Main Auditorium
- Council Chamber
- AB Auditorium Meyrin
- AB Auditorium Prévessin
- AT Auditorium
- IT Auditorium

For more information on both the inauguration and the LHCFest please visit the LHC2008 webpage.

The Exhibition

Next door to the ceremony, in building SM18, there will be exhibitions of the LHC experiments and the Grid. The building still houses the equipment used to test the magnets before they were installed in the tunnel. In typical CERN fashion, rather than remove the twelve test benches and the cryogenic equipment, the organisers have put up information to explain what the machines do.

Each of the four corners of the room will have an exhibition devoted to one of the big four LHC experiments, displaying some of their most beautiful detector prototypes, alongside their latest videos and pictures.

The centrepiece of the exhibition will be a 25 metre long replica of the LHC tunnel. Inside the CERN main workshop the TS/MME group have been building a 1:1 scale model of the LHC tunnel. Built with exactly the same features as the tunnel, the replica will even house two real dipoles. The whole exhibition will remain as a permanent attraction for visitors to CERN.