TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

2015 TEDxSalem

Fearless against failure: The story behind this year’s location

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SCC Front 1

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt any­thing?
— Vin­cent van Gogh

It’s espe­cial­ly mean­ing­ful that this year’s TEDxSalem con­fer­ence — the theme of which is “fear­less” — is being held at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

Why? Fear very near­ly pre­vent­ed a con­fer­ence cen­ter from com­ing to down­town Salem at all.

Specif­i­cal­ly, the fear that such a ven­ture would fail.

The con­ven­tion cen­ter opened with great fan­fare and a rib­bon-cut­ting in 2005.

But in the decades lead­ing up to that moment, devel­op­ers and city offi­cials alike had tried and failed and tried again to bring a hotel and con­ven­tion cen­ter to Salem’s down­town.

There was the pro­posed Hilton Hotel and con­ven­tion cen­ter in 1976 that would have cost an esti­mat­ed $21 mil­lion. But the devel­op­er strug­gled to find finan­cial back­ers and ulti­mate­ly cost the city hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars. There was talk of a river­front con­ven­tion cen­ter, a down­town civic space and even a golf course. A devel­op­er in the 90’s pro­posed a $27.7 mil­lion con­fer­ence cen­ter and hotel, only to be reject­ed by the City Coun­cil.

It was­n’t until the ear­ly 2000s that city offi­cials began work­ing with the com­pa­ny behind the Phoenix Inn to bring a hotel and con­ven­tion cen­ter to the space. A $32 mil­lion cen­ter was approved in 2003 under May­or Janet Tay­lor.

But fears about the project — its size, scale, cost, what it promised the com­mu­ni­ty, even what it looked like — con­tin­ued to run ram­pant. Cit­i­zens were wor­ried about the size and the design. Busi­ness own­ers expressed con­cerns over its impact to the down­town econ­o­my. And some city offi­cials ago­nized over whether or not it was a wise invest­ment.

When the cen­ter opened in 2005, even its strongest sup­port­ers acknowl­edged it would like­ly lose mon­ey in its first few years.

Instead, the cen­ter host­ed 284 events and 45,000 peo­ple in its first 10 months alone.

Since then, the cen­ter has played host to elab­o­rate din­ners, ele­gant fundrais­ers, farewell par­ties for city dig­ni­taries, nation­al con­fer­ences and local high school reunions.

And this fall, we’re thrilled that the cen­ter will be host­ing TEDxSalem 2015.

It was a fear­less few who made the cen­ter a real­i­ty. This Octo­ber, let’s cel­e­brate that.

Meet TEDxSalem’s Artist in Residence: Brianna Miller

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As part of our activ­i­ties this year, TEDxSalem has launched an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram. The Artist in Res­i­dence (AIR) will help set the tone for our event, com­mu­ni­cate the event theme and con­vey an ‘idea worth spread­ing.’

As you can imag­ine, it’s a mighty large under­tak­ing both the selec­tion of an artist to take charge of the role and for an artist to cre­ate a work of art that will impact a space, express a feel­ing and con­vey a mes­sage while being suit­able for pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy.

It’s a tall order, but also a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty.

We received a num­ber of won­der­ful appli­ca­tions, but there was one that stood out among the rest, one that made an unfor­get­table impact. It stirred a response both men­tal and emo­tion­al. It showed inno­va­tion and intu­ition.

Meet Bri­an­na Miller, our inau­gur­al Artist In Res­i­dence for TEDxSalem.

A Salem-born Keiz­er res­i­dent, Bri­an­na was drawn to art in her youth, doo­dling, craft­ing and cre­at­ing. While attend­ing McNary High School, her ulti­mate goal was to land a job with Wieden+Kennedy, a Port­land adver­tis­ing agency best known for its work for Nike and Trav­el Ore­gon.

She is a recent grad­u­ate of the Pacif­ic North­west Col­lege of Art, where while study­ing design and dab­bling in illus­tra­tion, an inter­est in instal­la­tion art grew. Dur­ing the cre­ation of her the­sis, she devel­oped a fas­ci­na­tion with col­or the­o­ry, expe­ri­en­tial design and synes­the­sia.

Her final project was an inter­ac­tive instal­la­tion called “The Mag­i­cal Chro­ma­chines.” It con­sist­ed of three mov­ing light sculp­tures, her take on “The Dream Machine” by Brion Gysin and William Bur­roughs, which were each accom­pa­nied by a mixed tape of hand-select­ed songs that rep­re­sent­ed or inspired mem­o­ries from her past. It was an explo­ration of the inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty of col­or, music and mem­o­ry that could be expe­ri­enced col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly or with indi­vid­ual inter­ac­tion.

At the urg­ing of a friend, Bri­an­na applied to be the TEDxSalem AIR. Although a long­time fan of TED, since she only moved back to Salem in Novem­ber 2014, she was not famil­iar with our local event but when she read our post about the devel­op­ment of this year’s theme, co-cura­tor Bri­an Hart’s words stuck with her.

“Fear­less as a theme res­onates with me,” Bri­an­na said. “I like to explore top­ics of phi­los­o­phy. Why do we have fear? What is fear? Is it pos­si­ble to be com­plete­ly fear­less? How do you become fear­less?”

For the TEDxSalem stage she is lean­ing towards a light instal­la­tion, but has a num­ber of ideas in mind. Essen­tial­ly, she wants to cre­ate an immer­sive, sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence with her instal­la­tion.

The AIR pro­gram is a unique oppor­tu­nity for an artist. Bri­an­na is explor­ing her work, ideas and cre­ativ­i­ty to fash­ion a stage dis­play that will intrigue and inspire. She will also present a TEDx talk about her art.

After the event, TEDxSalem hopes to secure a pub­lic loca­tion to dis­play her instal­la­tion so the whole com­mu­ni­ty may enjoy and expe­ri­ence it as well.

 

Early bird tickets on sale June 3

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Snapshot from TEDxSalem 2013
Snap­shot from TEDxSalem 2013

Guess what! Ear­ly bird tick­ets for TEDxSalem 2015 go on sale tomor­row.

Ear­ly bird tick­et sales begin at 9 a.m. Wednes­day, June 3.

What’s an ear­ly bird tick­et? It gives you every­thing you get with a stan­dard tick­et (admis­sion to the full day of talks by our speak­ers, enter­tain­ment, par­tic­i­pa­tion in recess breaks, hands-on activ­i­ties between ses­sions, plus food through­out the day, a gift bag and a few oth­er good­ies) but includes a $10 dis­count.

Ear­ly bird tick­ets are avail­able in a lim­it­ed quan­ti­ty for a lim­it­ed time. Sales end at 9 a.m. on June 18 or when sold out, whichev­er comes first.

But don’t wor­ry, if you miss ear­ly bird tick­ets, stan­dard tick­et sales begin June 18 and run until Octo­ber 2 or until sold out.

Have you heard about our theme? It’s “Fear­less.” Learn why and how we picked it here.

Have you met our on stage host? It’s 2013 alum­nus Kei­th Seck­el. Learn about him here.

Have you seen our speak­er line­up? Check them out here.

So what are you wait­ing for?  See you at TEDxSalem on Octo­ber 3 at the Salem Con­fer­ence Cen­ter.

Tick­ets are avail­able online at https://tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

Ear­ly bird tick­ets are $40 and avail­able until 9 a.m, June 18. Stan­dard tick­ets are $50. Stu­dent tick­ets are $40.

Ques­tions? Feel free to email info@tedxsalem.us

TEDxSalem 2015 host announcement: 2013 alumnus Keith Seckel

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Kei­th Seck­el is not flashy and he does­n’t demand your atten­tion. He has his own way of draw­ing you in, with a qui­et and under­stat­ed sin­cer­i­ty that makes you want to cling on to his every word.

His gen­tle pres­ence is what made him one of the most mem­o­rable speak­ers of the inau­gur­al TEDxSalem in 2013, with his touch­ing talk on death — and ulti­mate­ly — life.

Keith Seckel
Kei­th Seck­el

These qual­i­ties are what make co-cura­tors Bri­an Hart and Car­lee Wright so excit­ed about hav­ing Kei­th host TEDxSalem at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter this fall.

There are many deci­sion that go into plan­ning a TEDx event, and find­ing the right host is up there with select­ing speak­ers. The job of a host involves many respon­si­bil­i­ties than might be read­i­ly vis­i­ble to the audi­ence.

“You are not only the guide for the audi­ence, explain­ing the flow of the event, but you are also the even­t’s ambas­sador,” Bri­an says. “Being the face of the event, they have to wear many hats, they are respon­si­ble for intro­duc­tions of the speak­ers, giv­ing the audi­ence the per­fect tease of what is about to come, but at the same time nev­er telling the audi­ence how to feel. They are also in charge of time-keep­ing, trou­bleshoot­ing, announce­ments, con­nec­tions and audi­ence engage­ment.”

Phew! Good thing this year’s event theme is “fear­less.” Kei­th has ful­ly embraced this big role.

He says he hopes to be effec­tive and invis­i­ble — to help the event run smooth­ly and com­fort­ably, but then get­ting out of the way to let the speak­ers shine.

“In oth­er words, through­out the day I want to be the semi-colon; the punc­tu­a­tion that gen­tly guides peo­ple from one space to anoth­er,” Kei­th said. “And at the end of the event as peo­ple think back on their expe­ri­ence, I want them to remem­ber the speak­ers and the break­out ses­sions — and sort of for­get about me.”

Please join us in wel­com­ing Kei­th back on the TEDxSalem stage.

Salem Convention Center set as next TEDxSalem venue

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SCC Front 1

At TEDxSalem, we put a lot of thought in our venue. It’s not just about a phys­i­cal space, you see. It needs to fos­ter and facil­i­tate the vibe we are look­ing for, which is an invig­o­rat­ing, excit­ing and stim­u­lat­ing expe­ri­ence for all our speak­ers and par­tic­i­pants.

This is why we are so excit­ed to announce the venue for this year’s TEDxSalem: Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

Square in down­town, Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter is a state-of-the-art, Earth­wise facil­i­ty that has the space for us to grow. It will be able to accom­mo­date our talks as well as our break­out ses­sions and lunch recess.

It will also be the host of our after par­ty direct­ly fol­low­ing the event.

We have always hoped to give our guests the per­fect mix of a TEDx and Salem event. The Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter allows us to pro­vide that.

So save the date for Oct. 3. And get ready to be fear­less!

TEDxSalem launches Artist in Residence program

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TEDxSalem has just launched an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram.

This pro­gram pro­vides sup­port for an artist to cre­ate an art instal­la­tion that will help set the tone for our event, com­mu­ni­cate the event theme and con­vey an ‘idea worth spread­ing.’

The Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram is a TEDx Incu­ba­tor Project that was start­ed by TEDxMt­Hood (for­merly TEDx­Con­cor­diaU­Port­land), which was the first large-scale event to have an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram where local artists work in con­junc­tion with the main event. TEDxSalem is one of the first events to launch an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram under the men­tor­ship of TEDxMt­Hood.

It is a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for an artist to share their work with a new audi­ence and in a new, dynam­ic way.

Are you an artist? Click here to learn more about the TEDxSalem Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram.