Working At The Detroit Auto Show Is Like 'Operating On Someone Who's Awake' (VIDEO)

Working At The Detroit Auto Show Is Like 'Operating On Someone Who's Awake'
DETROIT, MI- JANUARY 14 - Subaru unveils the WRX STI at the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Convention Center in Detroit. January 14, 2014. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
DETROIT, MI- JANUARY 14 - Subaru unveils the WRX STI at the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Convention Center in Detroit. January 14, 2014. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Dazzling displays, glowing screens, gorgeous models and, most importantly, cars of the future make Detroit's North American International Auto Show one of the world's most eye-catching events.

But it takes the work of many months, not to mention thousands of hands, to transform a million square feet of empty exhibition space at Cobo Center for 5,000 journalists and almost 800,000 visitors from around the world. Those countless hours of toil flash by in this new timelapse video made by IBEW Local 58 electricians and the National Electrical Contractors Association.

Check out an amazing birds-eye view of the auto show:

Cobo Center uses enough electricity during the auto show to power a small city. Six hundred electricians were hired to install thousands of lights, giant video walls and literally miles of electrical cables. Building out the auto show hardly allows for any down time, as the frantic pace of this timelapse video demonstrates.

"It’s kind of like operating on someone who’s awake," Michael Richard, business manager IBEW Local 58, said in a release. "Adjustments and changes have to be made while the show is running and the world is watching."

Watch the full timelapse video below -- we love watching the lights turn on just after the one-minute mark.

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Detroit Auto Show 2014

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