When Intelligibility
INSPIRES
A Conversation with Barack Obama in Halifax
By Andrew King
The
excitement was palpable within a good-
sized radius of the Scotiabank Centre in
Halifax’s downtown core. Diverse hordes of
humans from all walks of life surrounded
the venue as the doors opened promptly
for the evening’s highly-anticipated enter-
tainment; however, in this case, it wasn’t a
musical icon or mega-star comedian set to
take the stage.
34 PROFESSIONAL SOUND
SET-UP FOR A CONVERSATION WITH BARACK OBAMA AT THE SCOTIABANK CENTRE IN HALIFAX
Barack Obama, the 44 th President of the
United States, was in the city for a speaking
engagement on Nov. 13, 2019, celebrating
the 70 th anniversary of the Nova Scotia
Co-Operative Council, a group that supports
co-ops and credit unions throughout the
province. The event – formally dubbed A
Conversation with Barack Obama – sold out
in just over 20 minutes, though close to a
third of the 9,000 total tickets were secured
ahead of time for students and “future
leaders” from the city and wider community
– including a significant number of African
Nova Scotians.
Dianne Kelderman, the president
and CEO of the council who interviewed
Obama onstage that evening, said it took
18 months to arrange and plan the visit
– much of that dedicated to simply per-
suading Obama and his team to accept
their invitation. Once he did, they knew they
wanted the event to be accessible to a wide
swath of the population.
“We wanted to have a lot of young
people, our future leaders, in the audience.
We wanted diversity in the audience. We
wanted kids and youth who would never
have this opportunity [to be] in the au-
dience tonight,” Kelderman told the CBC
ahead of the event. “I think that they are