by Djerrid

Pro Tip: When a convention organizer comes up to you and asks if you would like to get up behind the podium, you say Yes.

Here’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and DNC Secretary Alice Travis Germond going state by state through the roll call vote.

To get on the good side of all of the bloggers, the DNC has been inviting us three at a time to get backstage throughout the convention. From here you can get a good look at how it is all set up and what the speakers see from the stage.

This is where the speakers climb up from their dungeon every four years to go out on the stage.

Video is the best way to see how the huge backdrops are all put together.

I was able to get backstage through a special tour. Otherwise, I would need a Blue pass.

The color-coded hierarchy of passes.

Orange = Arena

Light and Dark Purple = Hall – Don’t know how this is different from the Arena pass

Green = Floor – Bloggers can exchange their hall pass for a rotating floor pass for 30 minutes. From there you can go all the way up to the stage.

Blue = Backstage – Beside the bloggers, local TV stations have a section up there.

Red = Podium – I suppose you are able to take off your lanyard before stepping up to the mic.

Here’s how close you can get with a floor pass.

Now let’s back up a little bit for the big picture. Here’s a shot from the highest seat in the house. Note the lack of balloons hanging from the rafters.

In the picture below, the delegates’ laptops double as blue-glowing aisle-runners.

I’ll expand a bit on what I wrote yesterday on how the roll call works. In the aisle next to each state’s contingent of delegates is a laptop where they stand up and declare the number of delegates for each candidate.  The DNC convention secretary records all of the official tallies even though this is all perfunctory; this was all settled last month.  The laptop is used just as a digital backup.

Right before the delegate’s representative stands to deliver, a DNC official clears the aisle around them and gives the representative pointers on where the camera filming them will be shooting from. When called on they first deliver a speech on why their state or territory (or Americans Abroad in general) is so freakin’ cool and then finally rattles off the tally.

Now for some other fun pics. Insane in the brain!

Here’s one of the signs they are handing out. Along with all of the others, it was hand-made along with all the other ones I saw.

The band was just to the left of the stage. They did a pretty good job, although U2 seems to be a hard band to cover.

Wolf Blitzer and Cooper Anderson were easy to spot.

And why do the Fox News anchors look like they were made by Mattel?

It was getting close to Obama being officially nominated by the party, and delegates started to come to their feet.

After a while, I tried to get back out on the floor, but there was a line 20 deep just to look inside. So, dejected, we made our way back to the our little hole in the ground.