As 50 students filled the viewing area in the Pegasus Ballroom anticipating a live webcast Wednesday at 8 p.m., the screen went blank.
The 2% Solution, a webcast discussion on solving global warming, was set to air live from the UCF Cocoa campus and on screens nationwide.
Eban Goldstein, the project director of Focus the Nation, explained in a statement that the surpassing of bandwidth made viewing the real-time video nearly impossible.
"There were simply far too many people across the country trying to watch it at the same time," Goldstein said.
Goldstein explained in his statement that they anticipated 10,000 screenings, but it was far more than they expected.
"In a positive light," Goldstein said, "this means that thousands of more people care about finding solutions to global warming [than] we thought."
Fanny Martinez, the webmaster of Focus the Nation at UCF and a member of LEAD scholars, was hosting the Pegasus Ballroom screening.
As soon as the video cut out, Martinez tried to refresh the Web site, but it didn't work.
Martinez called the three other locations showing the webcast, and they were encountering problems streaming the real-time video, too.
"It was giving [other locations] maybe quarter-minute clips; nothing really understandable," Martinez said. "The sound wasn't working; the video wasn't working.
Martinez had called both the Dandelion Communitea Cafe and the Drunken Monkey Coffee Bar.
The owner of the Drunken Monkey, Larry Hardin, said he would screen the webcast at a later date through the archived version if anyone was still interested in viewing the video.
The crowd waiting to view the webcast had mixed emotions about the webcast not functioning.
Some of the audience members were present for the LINK loot that would be given at the end of the webcast, and some were present to satisfy a class requirement.
Others, such as Rene Diaz, a sophomore mechanical and aerospace engineering major, were interested in what would be said and were frustrated when the live stream did not work.
Diaz said he was disappointed that he couldn't view the webcast because he wanted to see what new ideas the panelists would address.
"I heard about bio-fuels, ethanol and some new technologies," Diaz said, "but I wanted to see if they were going to say anything different."
Martinez said she thinks the student audience understood that the mishap was out of her control, and some took note that the video would be available later that night through the archive.
Martinez said she would be going home to watch the video.
Goldstein said the archived version of the webcast would be available by 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night at www.earthdaytv.net and said it was a "wonderful program with tremendous amounts of information and participation from our world leaders on the issue."
Goldstein also apologized for some inappropriate text messages during the webcast and said he "deeply regretted the offenses."
Goldstein said: "We had a team of people working to censor these messages, but I fear that some made it onto the screen before we could catch them."
Goldstein said he was proud of his fellow FTN members and wanted to remind them of how strong they would all be Thursday as they "collectively dig further into finding solutions to curb the crisis."
Martinez said she never expected the audience to be so large or the technical problems to occur but will be doing all she can Thursday at the National Teach-in event in the Pegasus Ballroom.
"We've been working on this, and that's our people," Martinez said. "[The webcast is] the national kick-off event."
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