Inaugurating a tramway line when gatherings are banned: moving the whole event onto screens.
The T9 at porte de Choisy
The T9 was to be inaugurated twice: an official opening on board, broadcast live with the mayors of the six towns along the line, and a public opening staged around six stops. Tighter health restrictions brought down both: gatherings banned, the funders' addresses cancelled, an electoral moratorium in force. What remained was a date, 10 April 2021, and a line that was opening anyway. The event would be entirely digital.
Concept built with the six towns and the funders, then entirely rebuilt when gatherings were banned
Filming, editing and technical surveys at the maintenance depot and along the line
Running the live broadcast on 10 April, then scheduling posts through to the 16th
The live broadcast was the most watched post of the day: around 6,300 people reached and more than eight hundred reactions. But it was not the ceremony that spoke loudest to residents, it was their own neighbourhood: the slideshow of the stops, published the day before, reached more than eight thousand people. The opening was also picked up in thirty-six press, web, radio and television items.
