Built of wood, the set is covered with blue upholstery fabric. Consistency is everything. Candidates, when they get into a debate situation, don't want the other candidate to have any kind of obvious advantage. The candidates' wardrobe choices tend to be limited. It's the only color they wear.
Air conditioning is an important issue under the television camera lights.
Seven cameras will be used in the debates at Mahaffey, and lighting will be provided by the theater's system. During the 1996 vice presidential debate, a special lighting rig was installed that made the theater so hot that an extra cooling duct was installed above the stage, never to be used again. This time, the candidates are asking for 60 to 62 degrees, and we shouldn't have any problem with that. What the people involved with the debate's production lose sleep over is the possibility of equipment failures, such as the 1976 power outage that brought the Gerald Ford-Jimmy Carter debate in Philadelphia to a halt. The candidates stood mute on stage for 20 minutes.