TEDentrance

TEDentrance

Security guards at the entrance of the Long Beach Performing Arts Center where TED attendees began checking in Monday morning. Photo by Sarah Bennett.

After a Monday night welcome celebration for the 1400 attendees to this year’s TED conference, the gathering’s world renown TED talks began with three sessions at the Terrace Theater Tuesday.

The organization known for fostering “ideas worth spreading” has more than 80 speakers and performers scheduled to take the stage before Friday’s closing party, the most in TED’s 29-year history. 

With a theme of “The Young. The Wise. The Undiscovered,” speakers range from U2 frontman Bono to some of the world’s leading thinkers and culture-changers who bear titles as varied as “Roboticist,” “Mouth Musician” and “Shepherd of Electrons.”

The ultra-exclusive conference, which announced recently that it would be moving to Vancouver and scaling down the number of attendees for its 2014 incarnation, began as the small “Technology, Entertainment and Design” conference held annually in Monterey, California. TED created a cult following starting in 2006, when it began posting online high-quality videos of its TED talks, many of which are now also available for streaming through Netflix.  

If you weren’t able to score one of the coveted $7500 tickets to this year’s talks, all six sessions that are taking place over the next four days will bestreamed live through the interactive TED website for a slightly less-hefty subscription fee.

In addition, all of today’s Session 3 talks–which begin at 5PM and will include the announcement of the winner of the $1 million 2013 TED prize–will be streamed live for free. 

To keep up with the latest updates at TED 2013, check out the TED conference’s public blog. 

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