1996 GOP Convention Fun Facts!

Did You Know...?

The San Diego Convention Center has:

• 800,000 feet of telecommunications cables
• 15,000 phone lines
• 350,000 square feet of meeting space
• 36 hospitality skyboxes
• seating for 20,000 people

It cost $5-7 million to prepare the center for the convention.

The 1996 GOP convention will feature:

• 50,000 balloons that will take 500 man hours to inflate
• More than 300 pounds of confetti

At the 1992 GOP convention in Houston, the podium was 50 feet high. This year, the podium is only 6 feet high, because the ceiling of the convention center is just 27 feet high.

The San Diego Convention Center is only one-third the size of the Houston Astrodome, site of the 1992 GOP convention. The Astrodome has 94 more hospitality skyboxes than San Diego's Convention Center.

The San Diego Convention Center has a long rectangular shape, measuring 840 feet end-to-end by 300 feet front-to-back.

The convention is expected to bring:

• Approximately 35,000 delegates, alternates and spectators
• 12,000-15,000 members of the media to cover the event
• Reservations for more than 19,000 hotel rooms
• $26 million in revenue from hotel accommodations alone
• $160 million into the San Diego economy.

There is a five-minute time limit on speeches at the GOP convention, except for the keynote speaker, the presidential nominee and the vice presidential nominee.

The federal government is contributing $12.3 million to the Republican and Democratic conventions this year.

The GOP has its own cable channel in San Diego and beams as many as 2,000 interviews a day to local cable and TV outlets.

Johnson & Higgins, the insurance company famed for insuring the maiden voyage of the Titanic, will be providing liability coverage for the GOP convention.