September 10th - The Big Media Event

Hi, All,

Just a quickie post to let you in on the latest plans and what-not for "The Big Turn-On (TM)" - no, not that kind of turn-on, shame on you! ;>

September 10th will be the day that the LHC-meisters plan on sending a single bunch of protons all the way around the ring, a scant few millions (or billions, or whatever) of times each way around the ring (each orbit takes only 89 microseconds...), and they've invited the world media to come by and witness it all. Herewith an email I received explaining it all:

---

Dear Colleagues,

CERN is planning a major media event to mark the official start of the LHC machine on 10th Sept. CMS will participate in this event at P5, the CMS Centre, the Globe, Fermilab and DESY.

If you have questions about the CMS plans (summarised below), please contact me as soon as possible.

Best regards,

Lucas Taylor
'LHC First Beam Event' Coordinator

======= CMS at the 'LHC First Beam Event' =======

-- DATES --

10 Sep: 'LHC First Beam Event', all day
09 Sep: Final tests of communications (incl. satellite links)
04 Sep: Last date for any visits to CCC
27 Aug: All underground areas closed to visitors


-- CERN CONTROL CENTRE (CCC) and THE GLOBE --

To allow the LHC operators to work at the CCC, the several hundred journalists coming to CERN will follow the day's events from within the Globe, via video links from the CCC and the four experiments' control rooms. The spokespersons and a few others will be on hand in the Globe for interviews. No unauthorised access to the Globe.


-- CMS CONTROL ROOM AT P5 --

CMS will attempt to 'see' the beam as soon as possible after it reaches CMS using the beam monitoring systems, halo muons, and beam gas. Access to the P5 SCR will be restricted to only those experts required to operate CMS.

-- CMS CENTRE AT CERN / PRESS VISITS --

The 'CMS Centre' in Meyrin will follow closely the events of the day with monitoring displays from the machine and P5 and H323 video connections to P5 and elsewhere, see:

http://lucas-nice.web.cern.ch/lucas-nice/cms-centre/www/cms-centre-34.pdf


The press will be permitted ** BY PRIOR ARRANGEMENT PLEASE ** to visit the CMS Centre to perform interviews. The BBC will have a permanent TV crew there all day.

A dedicated H323 videoconference system will permit outside sites (e.g. local press) to talk to physicists in the CMS Centre. Sites wishing to request this should ** CONTACT US WELL IN ADVANCE ** as we will need to test the connections.

Access to the CMS Centre will not be tightly restricted but only those on shift or who are involved in the event should plan to spend time there.

-- FERMILAB AND DESY --

There are simultaneous press events at Fermilab and DESY. These include H323 video connections to the CMS Centre for interviews with CMS physicists, and video feeds of the main event.


-- CMS INSTITUTES / COLLABORATORS --

The video stream of the event will be shown in the main auditorium, B40/S2-A and C, etc. and also webcast: http://webcast.cern.ch.

The video feed of the event will be broadcast via EBU satellite to media outlets worldwide; interested press organisations should contact the CERN press office for details (see links below).

If you have local press who wish to interview CMS people in the 'CMS Centre' in Meyrin (over H323 video link) please contact Lucas.Taylor@cern.ch to discuss what may be possible.

-- USEFUL LINKS --

CERN Press Office:
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/

CERN First Beam Event Web pages:
http://lhc-first-beam.web.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam/Welcome.html
http://lhc-first-beam.web.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam/practical.html

Satellite broadcast information:
http://lhc-first-beam.web.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam/satellite.html

Webcast of event:
http://webcast.cern.ch/

Fermilab Press Office:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/presspass/index.html

DESY Press Office:
http://zms.desy.de/press/index_eng.html

---

Just this last week, on Friday, I was on day-shift at Point 5 when the run coordinator piped up with an announcement that all cars parked on one side of the building had to be moved or towed, because an unnamed VVIP was coming to visit the experiment. My adviser thought it might be Prez. Sarkozy, but in fact it turned out to be the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. So we might be seeing other VVIP's popping on by...or maybe not actually "seeing" them. They didn't actually come through the control center, so I never saw the entourage. Oh well...

Take care,
-PKBD