Managing a mega event: Forum of Cultures 2004
Cities are like bicycles. When you stop pedalling, you fall off… Barcelona has put this adage into practice over the course of five months of cultural events under the name Forum 2004, including 50 conferences, with interpretation. Danielle Grée, member of Calliope in Spain, chief-interpreter for the Forum, provides us with a quick glance at the whole operation. For more details, please download the .pdf article.
I was first contacted by the Forum in 1999, and then appointed chief
Interpreter in 2002. My experience with the 1992 Barcelona Olympics
was most useful. The most important decision was to determine the
languages, the number of concurrent sessions, and the dates and
schedules of all 50 Dialogues before starting to recruit interpreters.
Several months were necessary to fit together all the pieces of
the puzzle and in the end, the Dialogues were held in 13 languages,
although the foursome: Catalan, Spanish, French and English were
used in almost all the sessions.
In parallel, consultations began in order to draw up individual
contracts to be signed by each interpreter. The usual compensation
clause in the event of cancellation applied, but with a heavy penalty
for the interpreter in case of no-show. A rather lengthy clause
on intellectual property was also included in the contract, in keeping
with legislation. Interpreters were paid copyright fees and were
widely broadcast over the Internet, and live on television or on
radio. For all the other aspects, the contract stipulated that the
"general working conditions" set out by AIIC would apply.
By then I had received a variety of CVs, so I defined a number of
recruiting criteria: relevant language combination, background and
experience, geographical proximity, AIIC membership, or else having
passed a test at one of the European institutions or the United
Nations, and of course, team spirit and collegiality. I could then,
in the fall of 2003, start giving options to those who met those
selection criteria.
I quickly realized that such a complex operation would require the
use of a relational database application and I decided to purchase
a software package called Ipso Facto, well known to consultant interpreters.
Thanks to this expert system, I was quickly able to create meetings,
assign interpreters and closely follow up on their status (i.e.
under option, confirmed, cancelled, and so forth), avoiding mistakes
such as double assignments (see the complete
article in .pdf for more technical details). Gradually, interpreters
were given options and then firm contracts.
An operation such as this rivals many European Institutions (Commission
and Parliament), without mentioning other organisations such as
Euro 2004 or the Athens Olympic Games, which recruit from the same
pool of interpreters. But the Forum had luck on its side. Uncertainties
due to enlargement pushed the institutions to exercise great caution
and to recruit with less advance notice. Moreover, half a dozen
interpreters decided to transfer their professional domiciles to
Barcelona for at least six months, including several Calliope members,
experienced in recruiting and coordinating interpreters, who were
often assigned as Team leaders or assistant coordinators. This was
to the advantage of the Forum.
Simultaneous interpretation requires quality equipment and booths.
Back in 1999, I included the ISO 4043 and 2603 standards for interpreting
booths in my reports, and thanks to a welcome intervention from
the AIIC Technical and Health Committee in Spain, five permanent
booths - instead of the seven initially planned - were finally built
in the magnificent 3,200 seat auditorium of the Convention Centre.
In addition, all the other meeting rooms were equipped with portable
booths fully compliant with standards.
Before we knew it, May 3, 2004, was upon us: the first day with
interpretation at the Forum. In addition to spoken language conference
interpretation which I coordinated, sign language interpreters were
brought in and took relay from the Spanish channel; the debate was
also broadcast on a small screen for the hearing-impaired. Likewise,
live debates were held in an open-air theatre dubbed "141 Questions"
and it was decided to transcribe speeches (in extenso) onto large
screens. This lead to a number of picturesque incidents that you
may want to read in the full .pdf
article.
Documentation is essential for preparation and quality interpretation.
A very practical solution was to open fifty virtual hard disks on
the Internet, one per Dialogue, which each interpreter could access
from any computer provided they had a password, and get the conference
papers, the programme and the interpreters' team sheet. The Team
leaders also played a crucial role in obtaining and photocopying
the oral presentations available only at the last minute, showing
marvellous teamwork and seamless collegiality.
For those who love numbers, the Dialogues welcomed a total of 2,411
conference speakers and nearly 70,000 participants from over 170
countries! This collective tour de force engendered some 4,700 interpreter
days, done by 124 interpreters, 60 of whom were domiciled in Barcelona,
23 in Spain (outside Catalonia) and 41 in the rest of Europe; it
wasn't necessary to recruit outside Europe. 91.41% of the total
volume of work was done by the Barcelona-based interpreters.
Barcelona has now passed the torch over to Monterrey, Mexico, which
is to host the next edition of the Forum on Knowledge in 2007. Now
it's up to you to carry the flame. Good luck!
Danielle GREE
Member of Calliope in Spain
