Convention business is fast-paced and demanding, requiring large numbers of electricians for brief periods of time.

The Friday before Thanksgiving 2024 offered a prime example for IBEW 134 at Chicago’s McCormick Place, where a Microsoft Ignite exhibition needed to be taken down and displays for the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) needed to be set up.

Demand for IBEW 134 labor on Nov. 22, 2024, was the highest ever for the convention center, even higher than when it was under construction in 1973, according to an IBEW 134 news release.

And that’s no small claim. With more than 2.6 million square feet of exhibit and convention space, McCormick Place claims fame as “the largest and most flexible use convention center in North America,” according to its website.

Microsoft and RSNA occupied all four convention center buildings, plus meeting rooms in the Hyatt Regency Hotel and ballroom within the McCormick Convention Complex.

“Between Microsoft and RSNA, the entire convention center needed labor,” said Brian Brown, business agent for IBEW 134.

“Microsoft’s exhibit space took several days to install, but we only had two days to break it down,” he said, adding that the video displays needed for the RSNA convention were highly advanced and elaborate.

“From when I started in the industry in 2013, things have changed,” Brown said. “Video now just has amazing features. The size and clarity of video walls is amazing, and each display booth has a different requirement. Some are suspended on trusses and some are floor-built.”

McCormick Place in Chicago self-identifies as “the largest and most flexible convention space in North America.” A record-breaking request for labor last November was filled thanks to the partnership between IBEW 134 and the Chicago and Cook County, Ill., chapter of NECA which supported participation of 300 apprentices.

Several meeting spaces had to be equipped with desks outfitted with electrical outlets to support laptop computers.

“As with all big jobs, we’re proactive with requests for labor,” said Don Finn, business manager and financial secretary for IBEW 134, which includes 12,000 members. “The request came to us as 500, maybe 600 would be needed, but we topped out with 719 electricians.”

Four hundred were needed for the Microsoft takedown, and around 300 were needed to erect trusses, lighting and exhibits for the RSNA event, Finn said.

To help cover both needs, around 300 second- and third-year apprentices were recruited from Friday classes to participate, with some returning to finish that Saturday, said Gene Kent, director of the IBEW-NECA Technical Institute in Alsip, Ill.

Among the third-year apprentices was Tony Kolt, who worked disconnecting electrical connections located beneath the floors of the Microsoft exhibition areas.

“We were working with mobile circuit breaker boxes and different voltages running everywhere—120/208V and 277/480V,” Kolt said. “I’ve been called to McCormick on two other occasions, and McCormick’s setup is sort of inscrutable, more so than, say, O’Hare or Midway airports. But what was so amazing was how organized everything is there.”

The most valuable lesson Kolt said he learned was “how well so many of us, including members of other trades, were able to work together—I was very happy to be a part of something of that scale, see it executed so quickly and at such high levels of skill and accuracy.”

“We could not miss a moment of work,” Finn said. “This was a great opportunity for the apprentices. We got phone calls from people in the convention industry, asking how we managed to get all these people together so fast.”

“The partnership between NECA and Local 134 allowed for a never-before-seen pooling of labor resources to accomplish what only NECA and the IBEW together could,” Kent said.

Photos supplied by IBEW 134