The big speeches are in prime time. What goes on the rest of the day at the DNC?

Day three of the Democratic National Convention is here, and GBH’s Adam Reilly is in Chicago covering the Massachusetts delegation.

He joined GBH’s All Things Considered guest host Craig LeMoult to discuss what he’s seeing on the penultimate day of the DNC. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.

Craig LeMoult: Adam, we’ve talked the last couple of days about all of these big speeches that make up the conventions — prime time and sometimes later than prime time. But for listeners who haven’t been to a convention before, what’s going on the rest of the day?

Adam Reilly: These are all-day events, these conventions. The Massachusetts delegation gets started every morning just after 7 o’clock — which, for me at least, is awfully early when things have run late in the evening, as you mentioned a moment ago.

They start off with a breakfast in the Sheraton, which is the hotel where they’re staying. These breakfasts — which they share with the main Democrats — feature a whole bunch of speakers every single day.

Today, for example, they heard from Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate back in 2016, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Chrissy Lynch, who is the head of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. And that’s a partial list.

It’s a bombardment of speakers every morning, bright and early, as people get their coffee and pastries.

LeMoult: Yeah, wow. That is a lot of speeches. What are they all talking about?

Reilly: I think it’s worth keeping in mind that these conventions are essentially multi-day political pep rallies. The goal is to get the party faithful — the people who care enough to become delegates and come here for these events — you want to get them as excited as you can about the ticket. You want to keep them excited so that, when things wrap up, they’ll go off and do the work they need to do to get their candidates elected.

That makes it sound, I think, a little monotonous, and there are moments [when] these speeches can get monotonous, where one sort of blends into another. But what keeps it interesting, at least for me, are the insights or framing that you hear some speakers offer as they reflect on the race.

I want to highlight one example: Here is how Ayanna Pressley described Kamala Harris’s quest to become the first woman and the first woman of color to be elected president at an event earlier today at the breakfast this morning.

Ayanna Pressley, prerecorded: So we are poised to make history, but not just making history for the sake of making history. Making history for the sake of making real and lasting change. I’ve been asked over and over again how I’m feeling in this moment, and at first, I said it was surreal. But I won’t say that because I think that’s a denial of what we deserve in this moment. It isn’t surreal — it is real, and it is within our reach if we do what we need to do, Democrats.

Reilly: So that’s 30 seconds of — to my mind — pretty complex political rhetoric. You’ve got Pressley saying that making history is a means to an end rather than in and of itself. You also have her offering reassurances to Democrats who might be feeling anxious, especially after Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.

Every day, in those morning speeches, there are at least a few moments like that — maybe more than in the evenings because the setting is more informal and, I think, definitely less guarded than we get in prime time.

LeMoult: Well, that’s all just breakfast. What happens the rest of the day?

Reilly: There is a convention center here in Chicago called McCormick Place, which is about five miles away from the United Center, which is where everything goes on at night. During the day, McCormick is hosting a bunch of meetings of different affinity groups and interest groups. When Gov. Maura Healey addressed the convention’s LGBTQ caucus on Monday, that’s where she did it.

But there are other gathering spots, too, many of which I probably don’t even know about. Yesterday, I interviewed Nicole LaChapelle, who’s the mayor of Easthampton, at some place called the Mayor’s Hub, which was a venue where — it’s basically just Democratic mayors hanging out during the day, talking with each other about being Democratic mayors and comparing notes.

There’s a ton of entertaining that goes on. Yesterday afternoon, Maura Healey hosted a reception at the Chicago Winery in the middle of the afternoon. Some of these events and venues are open to the public and convention-goers generally. And then, there are others that are kept more under wraps, like the Healey event and the Mayor’s Hub I mentioned.