RNC unveils dramatic Trump convention stage

The set that will host Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland will feature a massive video board and twin white staircases leading up to the stage.

The 1,711 square foot video board will sit center stage above the speaker, the focal point of a stage flanked by silver-colored “blades” that will hide wires and lighting from viewers both inside Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena and on television. Republican National Convention CEO Jeff Larson guaranteed at a preview event Tuesday that Trump’s acceptance speech on the final night of the event will happen inside the arena and will not be moved to another, larger location.


Larson said that while convention organizers have been in contact with the Trump campaign regarding the set’s design, he could not say whether or not the candidate himself had weighed in on it. He also said that delays in accessing the arena due to the Cleveland Cavaliers' NBA championship run would force organizers to expedite the set’s installation. The four-week process is on schedule after one week of work, he said, and is planned out to the day.

“It’s not putting up a small stage for a Madonna concert or something,” Larson said. “There’s a lot that goes into this and the planning and everything else that we’ve had to do over the last 18 months to get ready for a week ago last Friday as we moved in and all those working pieces. We’ve never done this in less than five weeks, and we’re doing this just over, just at four weeks.”

Phil Alongi, the convention’s executive producer, said the set’s 647 moving light fixtures will manipulate the “texture, color and tone” of the event. While the set is the result a “very open discussion” between the Trump campaign and convention organizers, Alongi said the Manhattan billionaire’s flair for the dramatic will not change the nature of event.

“This is a news event,” said Alongi, a former producer for NBC News who also produced the Discovery Channel’s live telecast of daredevil Nick Wallenda’s tightrope crossing of the Grand Canyon. “The reason why they hired me to produce this is because I come out of a news background and that’s the part that is not going to get lost. This will remain a news event.”