The Making of PBS' National Memorial Day Concert

Producing the live National Memorial Day Concert requires more than nine months of advance planning, writing, and coordinating of countless details. The following is some background on the making of this annual television event.

• Coordination among 22 government entities including: the Military District of Washington; the National Park Service; the Office of the Architect of the United States Capitol; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Pentagon; and because of its unique location at the Capitol, three law enforcement agencies - the Capitol, National Park Service and District police.
  
  
• With a crew of over 300 people, the production team includes industry veterans who've worked on such prestigious live programs as the Grammy Awards, Country Music Awards, People's Choice Awards and the Tony Awards.
  
  
• Extensive meetings with clergy, psychiatrists, military and veterans' organizations are scheduled each year by executive producer Jerry Colbert to take the nation's pulse on the issues affecting our veterans and service members. Since current news events dictate the content of the event, Colbert has to remain flexible to last minute programming changes.
  
  
• It takes several months to pull the actual concert together from booking the stars, to researching footage for the documentary sequences to finding the personal stories that will be told and integrating it all to make a compelling program.
  
  
• Forty-eight hours before broadcast, the frenzied pace kicks in with a musical run-through at the Kennedy Center with top pops conductor Erich Kunzel and the National Symphony Orchestra; blocking rehearsals on-site on the West Lawn of the Capitol; only one full dress-rehearsal the night before the show; and late night production meetings to tweak the script and even change entire musical numbers.
  
  
• Nine different cameras are needed for the broadcast to cover every angle.
  
  
• Since September 11, security at the Capitol has been unprecedented. The massive police presence is responsible for installing a double fence around the West Lawn of the Capitol, the site of the concert, with checkpoints for searches of bags and parcels, as well as screenings by metal detectors.
  
  
• The weather is always a factor for an outdoor concert but the concert has never been cancelled due to inclement weather no matter how bad it gets. If it's damp, the National Symphony Orchestra musicians may have trouble keeping their instruments - particularly winds and strings - in tune.
  
  
• The new 10,000 square foot amphitheater band shell created for the National Symphony Orchestra was unveiled in 2002. It is a temporary structure that requires no permanent foundations and is supported at the front by two 60-foot columns attached to base plates that are anchored to the ground with 40-inch long steel stakes. The membrane of the band shell is further supported with cables that are also anchored with additional stakes - 120 in total. It can sustain winds of up to 90 miles per hour.