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

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.