Behind the scenes at SEEK: The logistics of planning a Catholic mega-conference
What does it take to put on an annual Catholic conference for almost 20,000 attendees?
“Alright, Fathers, settle down.”
“Settle down!” Father Kevin Dyer shouted into a megaphone over the chatter of the 500 priests gathered around him.
“You know the drill,” he began when the priests finally settled down.
“We are about to process in; take your seat, and those who are distributing communion know what to do!”
He paused, waiting for the priests to acknowledge his marching orders.
“Thank you all for your dedication and ministry!”
Dyer set the megaphone down, waved his hands and directed the priests to line up for the procession into daily Mass at the Salt Lake City Convention Center during SEEK 25.
That attempt to organize 500 priests into a semi-coherent line is just one small cog in the complex logistical network that a five-day conference for 17,000 Catholics entails.
SEEK is an annual conference run by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students — FOCUS. The apostolate hosted its first conference in 1999, inviting 25 college students to Kansas City, Missouri.
Over the years, FOCUS and the conference have grown in popularity and scale.
This year, the conference has three locations - Salt Lake City, Utah; Washington, D.C.; and Cologne, Germany.
In those three locations, more than 21,000 students are attending a SEEK conference this January, and FOCUS has no plans of slowing down.
The organization announced on the second night of the conference that registration had opened for SEEK 26, which will also occur in three cities: Denver, Colorado; Columbus, Ohio; and Fort Worth, Texas.
What does it take to put on a Catholic mega-conference year after year?
The Pillar spoke with some of the key planners at the Salt Lake City conference to ask about planning and logistics behind the event.
Time and money
Even though 2025 has just begun, Thomas Bruner, FOCUS’ vice president of formative experiences, is thinking about 2030.
SEEK 2030, that is.
“We plan conferences about five years out,” Bruner told The Pillar. “We're looking right now at where SEEK 2030 will be and really starting the planning process.”
“I’m really proud of the team we have coordinating these conferences. We only have 15 people in Denver planning the conferences, and the bulk of the work happens in those 12 months leading up to it, but we are talking with cities; we are planning years ahead.”
In those 12 months leading up to the next SEEK conference, Bruner is meeting with people from the host diocese and coordinating with a tech team, and other logistical planners
“We came out to Salt Lake City a half dozen times, doing planning visits. Then you're meeting with the hotel; you're meeting with the convention center. You’ve got meetings with the liturgy team and the production team,” Bruner said. “It is a lot of meetings.”
Over the course of these meetings, Bruner has a plethora of decisions to make.
People present him with new ideas and new challenges every day.
“The hardest part of this whole process is saying no,” Bruner said. “Whether it's telling people sitting on the waiting list that we just don't have space or saying no to a lot of great ideas.”
“Making that call, making that decision, is challenging, because they're all good things, but we can't do it all.”
All the while, registrations and sponsorships begin rolling in to help fund these expensive productions.
As a non-profit, FOCUS relies on the help of donors and registration fees to pay for the technology, security, venue, and other expenses that a large conference requires.
But when your target audience is broke college students, that creates a funding challenge.
“We always ask how we keep SEEK as affordable as possible because we don't want to turn students away, yeah, but funding is tough,” Bruner said. “Airline tickets, plus hotel, plus registration can get expensive for college students. Students pay the lowest price and the general attendees pay a little bit more, so a little bit of their ticket price helps to cover the cost of a student.”
Bruner said that one driving motivation behind hosting three conferences was to help make them as cheap and accessible to students as possible.
“A majority of our students live within driving distance of those venues and we want to put it as close to them as possible.”
FOCUS also relies on partnerships with various Catholic organizations, such as the Knights of Columbus, various universities, and organizations like The Chosen, to sponsor the event in order to offset some of the costs.
In addition, religious communities and organizations purchase vendor booths in the conference’s Mission Way, where they can promote their organization or order.
The final countdown
By the time December rolls around, most of the planning and fundraising is complete.
But there are still plenty of details that need to be dealt with: Plans have to be finalized, checklists need to be made, questions need to be answered, and last-minute tasks completed.
Long days are spent in the office finalizing details in the weeks leading up to the conference.
“December is tough on the team,” Bruner said. “There were days where I would come to the office…by 6 a.m., and I wouldn't be the first person in there, and I might not leave till seven or eight, and I wouldn't be the last person to leave.”
The team received a short break when Christmas rolled around. Two days later, though, they shipped out to Salt Lake City, ensuring that the Salt Palace Convention center was ready to welcome 17,000 Catholics.
“Most people are out here by the 26th, and once they're on site, they're long days,” Bruner said. “We've got checklists on checklists on checklists, of procedures, of learning what works, what doesn't work.”
“We walk through the halls, noticing and addressing problems like there is supposed to be a sign here. They're supposed to be, you know, chairs here. There's supposed to be a table here.”
By January 1st, everything was coming together. The venue had begun to be transformed from a run-of-the-mill events hall to a Church convention center and performance venue.
Lights, camera, action
Coordinating all of the lights, the cameras, the sound, and the screens is no easy feat.
At the helm of this technological ship stands Patrick Stoll, the director of operations for EideCom, a national production company that has partnered with FOCUS for 14 years to operate and produce the technology for the conferences.
For Stoll, planning a SEEK conference begins over a year out. ‘
It begins with visiting the site to understand the convention center layout and find any limitations or problems that the EideCom team would have to work around.
“When we are preparing, we are looking at a couple different things,” Stoll told The Pillar. “One is the attendee experience and trying to understand how attendees are going to use the space or interact with the space. Another key concern is thinking about how the AV equipment gets into the room and how it fits in the room.”
“We're looking at everything from the size of a loading dock elevator to make sure that our equipment can go in it to where we can hang lights.”
Every year, EideCom has to adapt and adjust to the new location. Since they have been partnering with FOCUS for over a decade, Stoll knows what FOCUS wants and how to produce the conference.
“One big key factor in a smooth planning process is our year-over-year relationship with FOCUS,” Stoll said. “There's a lot of uniqueness to this specific project and program, and we've been able to…come alongside with FOCUS as we've grown and as FOCUS has grown in the size of the conference to accommodate the ever-changing needs.”
This firm relationship between the two organizations helps to ensure a dynamic, smooth production.
“Because of our partnership with FOCUS, we have a really good grasp on what is happening in the conference and what's coming next,” Stoll said. “We know the flow of the conference, so we know really well what camera shot is coming next and what the lights need to do next. This helps us to make a cleaner production. What we're trying to do is blend into the space.”
To create the vibrant atmosphere and high-quality production that SEEK entails requires a large team and an even larger equipment inventory.
Stoll works with dozens of sound engineers, videographers and production specialists.
They are all working to ensure the large quantity of technology works in the numerous conference halls and rooms that the conference utilizes.
“We probably have 40 computers, 30 racks of equipment, and more than 150 lights just for the main conference space,” Stoll said. “When we arrive, there is nothing but an empty building with concrete, and we have to bring it all to life and connect it all together.”
Among the unique challenges posed by the Catholic conference: how do you create a stage that can serve as a conference platform, a performance venue, and a sanctuary for Mass?
“When we're designing the stage, we can't just think of it as one stage for a presentation. The stage in the room becomes a church. It becomes a space for entertainment,” Stoll said. “We're looking at all of the things the stage is needed for and how we can use the space to be able to enter into those different types of events.”
Transforming a keynote stage into an altar is a significant undertaking.
FOCUS missionary Luke Hellwig has been helping to coordinate SEEK liturgies for the past 14 years. For the past 12, he has served as the head of the SEEK liturgy committee.
In the months leading up to SEEK, Hellwig coordinates with Stoll and the EideCom team to ensure that the stage can be transformed into an appropriate space to celebrate liturgies reverently, while still operating within the confines of the technological and physical limitations of a conference hall.
“EideCom just does an amazing job, with the set with the staging, all the light, all the sound. They just find these amazing ways to transform the event space into a church,” Hellwig told The Pillar. “We started this tradition a few years ago, where we go to the local cathedral, take pictures, and then that's the backdrop they use for the stage during Mass. EideCom then uses multiple screens that are staggered to create depth that just makes for a stunning area.”
Convention hall church
Designing the stage is just one small part of Hellwig’s work.
Planning one liturgy for 17,000 people is a major task. Planning five Masses and an adoration night is even more complex.
Hellwig begins planning for the SEEK liturgies over a year and half before the scheduled conference. This gives him time to coordinate with the local diocese, so as to invite them into the planning process and receive additional assistance from their seminarians and priests.
“Planning the liturgies is a multiple-year planning system, just because we do our best to work with the local diocese. FOCUS doesn't own enough liturgical items for a 20,000-person Mass. So the more we can work with the diocese, the better,” Hellwig said.
“As soon as this conference is over, I'll begin talking to diocesan offices for the next SEEK conferences. Even at this SEEK, we have some guys from the Columbus diocese altar serving, because that'll be where we'll be next year, so they can get the feel. It's a year in, year out, process.”
Then, there are the site visits and the coordinating with the events team to understand the layout of the venue and the limitations that it will place on the planning.
“I get renderings well before the conference begins, which show what the stage is going to look like; this is the general setup of the chairs,” Hellwig said. “That gives us a lot of help to know this is the space and what we're going to see, and it helps us to plan how to set up the sanctuary.”
In addition to preparing a conference hall for a liturgy that is both beautiful and reverent, Hellwig also has to ensure that the liturgy runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
Large-scale Masses bring a host of logistical questions, such as how to distribute communion to some 17,000 people in an efficient manner.
To address this challenge, Hellwig and his team have devised a grid system over the years that splits the venue into different sections. Each section is assigned a seminarian who is tasked with guiding priests to the area and directing the flow of communicants.
“Yesterday, communion took 16 minutes; today it was around 18,” Hellwig said. “In this hall, there are eight columns and 12 rows. So each section is assigned a number and a letter. So rows are letters, A, B, C, D, E, F, all the way to J, and then columns are numbers. We print cards and tape them down, then before the conference and before the Mass, we have as many stations as there are that many seminarians who are helping us out and will assign the seminarians to a section.”
Hellwig also strives for reverence, hoping to avoid a repeat of the controversies surrounding World Youth Day 2023, when pictures surfaced of the Eucharist being stored in plastic boxes, and ordinary cereal bowls being used as ciboria.
“We have a lot of conversations with the celebrating and concelebrating priests and the MC to establish that trust between all of us,” Hellwig said. “That trust helps us to find the balance between preserving beauty and reverence in the liturgy and ensuring that it is licit and valid while also understanding that the uniqueness of the space sometimes creates challenges.”
A couple years ago, the conference became too large to make it feasible for all of the priests to stand in the sanctuary and for all of the hosts to be consecrated on the altar.
So with the help of the USCCB and Rose Sullivan, executive director of the National Conference of Diocesean Vocation Directors, SEEK began using a low altar, where ciboria filled with unconsecrated hosts are placed on a table sitting in front of the main stage.
Hellwig then asks the presiding bishop or priest to confer consecration onto the hosts and wine below.
“We have over 500 priests here for this conference, so you just can't fit them all on stage,” Hellwig said. “We have established what we call our low altar, where we put these tables down on the floor. All the priests sitting in the front sections will go up. They will do intinction, and then they will move to the left or the right, where they'll meet us. They will grab a ciboria, they'll meet a seminarian, and that seminarian will take them to their spot to distribute communion.”
After communion, the priests bring the ciboria to a makeshift credence table, where they then place all remaining consecrated hosts in a different ciboria and then purify the vessels. The ciboria filled with consecrated hosts is then placed in a makeshift side chapel to be used at future Masses.
“At a conference of this size, it is hard to estimate how many people will receive communion,” Hellwig said. “We estimate that we need to set out hosts for about 60% of registration, but we want to overestimate. We build our chapel of repose and place a giant tabernacle to place all of the leftover consecrated hosts in so then they can be used at the next Masses, until the last day, where we ask priests to consume any remaining hosts.”
Hellwig’s hard work and preparation pay off in smooth and efficient liturgies, but that doesn’t mean the whole process is flawless. During the event, Hellwig and his team are equipped with walkie-talkies to address the challenges that can and do arise.
“We're all on the same walkie-talkie channel during Mass and adoration, so that makes it so nice and easy to communicate,” Hellwig said. “One of the guys on my committee is a seminarian, Kevin Warden, so he's vested as a seminarian with the walkie and in the procession. I am able to say, ‘Hey, let's slow it down a little bit’, or ‘Add more charcoal’.”
Warden is not the only person equipped with a walkie-talkie in the procession. Ahead of the seminarians and priests is a team of security guards that clears the aisle of any participants.
“On the walkie, I can say, ‘hey, I need the middle aisle cleared’, and boom, the security team clears it,” Hellwig said. “During adoration, especially, people end up in the aisles, and so myself and the security team are walking 20 yards ahead of the procession, 20 yards behind to make sure the aisle is clear and the Blessed Sacrament is protected.”
Securing Jesus (and everybody else)
Clearing aisles of participants worshiping the Lord is the easiest part of the job for Major Steve Garcia, who has been coordinating security for FOCUS for the past seven years.
Garcia, a former major in the Colorado State Patrol, has also worked with the NFL, PGA, and served with a counterterrorism unit. In addition, he led security for the National Eucharistic Congress this past summer.
“I think security is critical in this day and age for major Catholic events,” Garcia told The Pillar. “Just a day before SEEK, police found explosives at a Catholic church. Catholics clearly are like any other religion; we are a target in today's day and age, and so I think it's critical for us to be aware of that and implement strong security protocols.”
Like all other aspects of SEEK, coordinating security begins over a year out. Garcia will contact the local police department and venue to explain the conference and SEEK’s specific security needs.
“It’s probably 18 months out that you begin those conversations with local law enforcement and emergency management. It's no easy feat bringing 15,000 people into a community,” Garcia said. “Things tend to go better the more advanced notice you can give police departments so that they can put it on their schedule, and they can schedule appropriate support for our event.”
Often, local police departments are more grateful than nervous when Garcia explains that he is bringing in 17,000 Catholics to the area.
“When we tell a department that we are bringing a Catholic conference to town, they know that we are not going to bring them trouble,” Garcia said. “They are more inclined to work with us and to assist us and provide other resources than when I have brought other events like the NFL into town.”
FOCUS has a three-pronged approach to security. They work with local law enforcement, a private security company contracted by the venue, and FOCUS missionaries who volunteer to assist.
This approach prioritizes vigilance and ensures that officers or other security personnel are always around.
“There are uniformed law enforcement officers walking around all over here, as well as the private security company that is vigilant and pays attention,” Garcia said. “We want to make sure that attendees understand the expectations of safety, such as that you cannot get into the conference without a credential. We draw a very hard line for entry.”
Beyond ensuring a safe environment, Garcia is also tasked with ensuring that speakers and entertainers have details to escort them through the convention center to their speaking engagements.
“Everybody has a detail, but for big speakers like Father Mike Schmitz, Emily Wilson, Monsignor Shea, we have had Phillip Rivers, and this year, Jordan Peterson came; we make sure they have extra, and we coordinate with FOCUS to set those details up,” Garcia said.
Often though, the security details are not there so much to protect the person as to ensure that the speaker moves from point A to point B in an efficient manner.
“It's not so much that our attendees are problematic; the security details are there more so to keep things moving efficiently,” Garcia said.
“The good thing about most of our speakers at these events is that they love people, and they'll stop and talk to everybody,” he explained. “We genuinely have to control our speaker more from stopping and creating a problem than protecting them from problematic attendees.”
More conferences, more challenges, more graces
Even though this year's conference just concluded, planning is already well underway for the three conferences scheduled to be held in January 2026.
FOCUS invited the bishops and diocesean leaders hosting the 2026 and 2027 conferences to a special lunch to discuss logistics and ideas.
“We had lunch with leaders from Columbus, Fort Worth, and Denver, as well as the host cities for 2027,” Bruner said. “We wanted to invite them into the process and tell them that we do not want to plan this ourselves, but we want to plan it with dioceses so that this conference can be a grace for the entire diocese and community.”
Excitement is already building in Columbus, Denver, and Fort Worth.
Bishop Earl Fernandes of the diocese of Columbus, Ohio, shared at a press conference that he hopes SEEK will be for Columbus what the 1993 World Youth Day was for Denver.
“Ask the people in Denver what World Youth Day meant for their diocese, and they will tell you it animated the whole diocese and brought forth many graces,” Fernandes said. “I think that that same thing can happen for us in the Diocese of Columbus, provided we get priests on board, provided we get parishes onboard.”
Immediately following the announcement, Fernandes sent an official press kit to all of the parishes in his diocese and to diocesean staff members, asking them to begin promoting the event.
The bishop told The Pillar that he intends to promote the conference throughout the coming year to build momentum.
“We have informed all our priests and communications directors about next year because many of our priests don't even know what FOCUS or what SEEK is,” Fernandes said. “We are trying to get the message out because we want SEEK to not just be for college students and young adults, but we also hope that parish staffs can be formed here so that they can then go and invite another person and evangelize.”
“We are just working to build momentum.”
Planning is in full swing, but Fernandes is not concerned with the logistics at the moment.
Rather, he is focused on inviting his flock to the conference.
“FOCUS is experts at this point. They know what they're doing,” he said. “The real question is now, how do we get our own dioceses and staff to understand what this could mean for our diocese and then leverage that momentum towards the future?”
Editor’s note: As nearly 20,000 Catholics — mostly students — gather at SEEK, a massive conference sponsored by campus ministry apostolate FOCUS, The Pillar will feature reporting from Catholic student journalist Jack Figge, who is serving as a ground-level correspondent at the event.
The last major conferences I've been to were the Steubenville Mid-America conferences jn Springfield, Missouri, and the Eucharistic Congress. In both cases, I was seriously impressed and edified at both the tremendous reverence and efficiency of the Sacred Liturgies there.
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