Secrets of the Olympic Ceremonies. Myles Garcia

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СКАЧАТЬ later, the sights and sounds of Beijing 2008 cost NBC (the National Broadcasting Company) some $894 million (for rights alone). There were no Nielsen ratings for Games previous to 1968, but the opening ceremony of Beijing in August 2008 drew some 842 million Chinese viewers, 34.2 million Americans, and at least another 2.5 billion viewers worldwide.

      Similarly, the costs of staging these one-time Ceremonies have mushroomed beyond all reason.

      Cast of thousands, cost of millions. The Olympic ceremonies today literally employ a cast of thousands and are produced at a cost of millions. The closest thing these strange extravaganzas can be compared to are the older, big-budget Hollywood ‘road show’ epics that, in the pre-digital age, employed thousands of extras to fill up the wide screen as invading armies, citizens in revolt or in some sort of cataclysm, or as cheering crowds to a conquering hero. And these casts of thousands (usually Italian or Spanish extras) were surrounded by eye-popping, “expensive” production values: stupendous sets and sumptuous costumes.

      These were the big jaw-droppers of their pre-digital day when each studio tried to outdo the other in grandiosity: The Ten Commandments (Paramount, 1956), Ben-Hur (MGM, 1959), Spartacus (Universal, 1960), 55 Days at Peking (J. Arthur Rank, 1963), Cleopatra (20^th Century-Fox, 1963, $30 million), Fall of the Roman Empire (Bronston Productions, 1964), to name a few.

      But the big difference between Olympic ceremonies and these epic films is that because feature films are made for profit, the casts were then paid off for their services. In Olympic and similar ceremonies, those productions rely solely on the goodwill of volunteer casts (and often production crews). These are volunteer efforts by civilians or, in the cases of Moscow 1980 and Beijing 2008, recruited army cadets. Of course, a little flirtation with show biz would have been a big break from the dull, humdrum life of being a private, especially if you get to wear a snazzy costume and have your face flashed on global television. Who doesn’t dream of his fifteen seconds of fame?

      Numbers. The casts of recent Olympic ceremonies range from around 6,000 to 13,000+ (Seoul). However, these pale in comparison with the Spartakiades of old socialist regimes or North Korea’s Arirang Games which utilize(d) as many as 75,000 participants on the average to regale its great leader, Kim Il Sung, a few select foreign visitors and his starving, adoring masses.

      Ceremonies vs. Films. There is an inverse formula to getting the job done correctly in filmmaking versus Olympic ceremonies. Motion pictures involve a few rehearsals (for various camera angles, for example) or numerous ‘takes’ (from which the best ones are picked and then edited) to get a scene in the can; whereas Olympic ceremonies are just the opposite. They require a few weeks of arduous practice just to get it right for ONE live performance--no repeats, no retakes that can be edited in post-production. And where the movies can ‘fake’ any and all effects, there is no such “cheating” in Olympic or similar ceremonies. They are, for the most part, shown live and their major jaw-dropping effects are meant to impress in a ‘live’ arena.

      Ceremonies vs. Large-scale Musical Stage Shows. Similarly, let us contrast the whole Olympic enterprise to, say, your big-budget Broadway or Las Vegas musical. At the end of 2008, an archetypical Broadway musical cost about $20 million to bring to life, with a cast of about 36 actors, rehearsing for two months, and takes about 1½ years to recoup its investment. The most expensive stage-musical of any kind to open is Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark. It was originally budgeted at $54 million for a 2008 opening. When it finally opened in June 14, 2011 after a record number of previews (183), it had cost $75 million. With a weekly operating cost of nearly $1 million, it is estimated to take at least seven years (so early 2018) for the show to recoup its original investment.

      In comparison, the Beijing 2008 opening ceremony alone cost nearly $65 million, had a cast of 10,000+ people (one segment--the “moving print blocks”--rehearsed for ten months (the longest on record), and with no objective whatsoever to turn over a single red cent, to use a pun. Furthermore, while the Broadway musical plays only to about 1,500 people a night and one pays an (est.) US$125 for an orchestra seat, an O.C. is seen today by at least 2.5 billion people in one sitting and costs nothing for the televiewer to see it; but seeing it live is the most expensive ticket on any Olympic programme. So there is truly nothing quite like an Olympic opening ceremony.

      Budgets. The earliest publicly available report strictly for ceremonies, quantifiable in U.S. dollars, would be for the Innsbruck Games of 1976. In its pre-award budget, the Innsbruck ’76 Organizing Committee had budgeted $70,000 for “all ceremonies and prizes.” Compare that to the wildly rumored $300 million cost of the Chinese ceremonies; but a more realistic figure was (the still suspect) budget of some $160 million for Beijing 2008’s ceremonies. ‘Suspect’ because Moscow 1980 and Beijing 2008 were staged by totalitarian governments accountable to no one; thus the former USSR and China could fudge and cover up whatever portions of their overall Games budgets might suit their purposes. However, as seen in Chapter 8, Beijing initially seemed more forthcoming than Moscow.

      Olympic ceremonies’ budgets now include the so-called Victory/Award ceremonies--the little ceremonies wherein medals are awarded to the winning athletes. Because these are dictated by IOC protocol, there is a regimen of how these mini-ceremonies must be conducted, especially now that these Award ceremonies are staged some 300 times for the Summer Games. Some ceremonial budgets have also included partial costs of the Torch Relay--another expensive ceremonial component of an Olympic Games. And starting with Lillehammer 1994, the cost of the Paralympic Ceremonies has likewise been tacked on to the general Ceremonies budget.

      Of course, the highest-known budget for ceremonial expenses for a major multi-sport international tournament goes to the Asian Games of 2006 hosted by Doha, Qatar, at a staggering $185 million for ceremonies alone--but chump change for a tiny, oil-rich emirate.

      Some recent ceremonial budgets and/or final expenditures: Los Angeles 1984-$10.5 million; Calgary 1988-$23 million (which included all Pageantry, Cultural and Torch Relay costs); Barcelona 1992-$25 million. Lillehammer 1994’s $13,000,000 started a trend which also included Awards and Paralympic ceremonies in the published budget. The Centennial Games in Atlanta 1996 had budgeted $30 million; but it came in at $26.6 million as the first Games’ ceremonies to come in under budget even though the $26.6 million included Awards, Paralympics and Torch Relay.

      Progressively, budgets went up in slight increments: $27.5 mil for Sydney; $28 mil for Salt Lake (including its Paralympic ceremonies)…and then it jumped seismically to $95 million for Athens 2004 although that figure was supposedly spread out over four years. The Torino Winter Games of 2006 was overspent by $55 million for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne; and the still unbroken $185,000,000 on Doha’s 2006 Asian Games. Beijing came close at about $160 million ($36 million for the Paralympics; $20 mil for miscellaneous).

      Vancouver 2010 closed its books at Can$48.3 million; and London is setting aside $128.5 million thereby becoming the most second expensive Olympic ceremonies after Beijing. Sochi 2014 is supposedly budgeting $46 million for its ceremonies; and Rio de Janeiro 2016 put down $125 million for Ceremonies in its bid book. We shall see if those budgets stay.

      The difficulty with comparing budgets for various ceremonies over time is the years when they were quoted in non-US dollar denominations (e.g., Innsbruck 1976, Albertville 1992 and Athens 2004) vs. present-day cost perceptions. It was difficult to ascertain the prevailing rates of exchange at the time; and then value-compare them to the others (especially the U.S.-based Games) whose costs were more readily available in U.S. dollar amounts. (Strangely enough, the production costs of opening ceremonies’ nearly mirror the estimated viewerships of the ceremonies in the U.S. Barcelona cost $25 million; its U.S. viewership was 21.6 million households. Sydney’s cost $27.5 million; its U.S. viewership clocked in at 27.3 million. So, it’s almost as if a U.S. dollar per head. Salt Lake 2002 perhaps would have had the cheapest ‘gate’ cost going by this formula. It would’ve been 53¢ per head if admission had been charged.)

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