Secrets of the Olympic Ceremonies. Myles Garcia

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СКАЧАТЬ 2010’s Ceremonies budget was originally set at Can$58,000,000. This was an early figure bruited about when the Australian team of David Atkins Enterprises was picked to stage those winter Ceremonies. Atkins’ team was previously known for their staging the aforementioned budget-breaking Doha 2006 Asian Games ceremonies. Of that Can$58 million, $40 million were reserved for the regular and Paralympic openings and closings; and $18 million for Awards ceremonies in both Vancouver and Whistler. By 2009, the Whistler Awards ceremonies were eliminated, bringing VANOC’s entire ceremonies budget to Can$40,000,000. In June 2009, VANOC released an additional Can$8.3 million. That brought directly related ceremonies-spending back up to some Can$48.3 million before the curtain opened. The belated Can$8.3 mil funds went to revamping the B.C. Place sound system as well as additional requirements for the show(s).

      London’s 2012 bid papers originally set aside $92,000,000 for all the Cultural, Ceremonial (including Awards ceremonies), Identity and torch relay doings. However, by December 5, 2011, LOCOG announced that due to massive savings on other phases of the Games, they were doubling the ceremonies budget (alone) to (£82 million) $128,400,000—making London 2012 the second most expensive Olympic ceremonies in history after Beijing; but still way behind Doha 2006’s gargantuan $185 million budget.

      The Best Seats in the House. The cost of attending these once-in-a-lifetime shows are like the cost of putting on the shows. They can range from reasonable and affordable if you’re lucky, to the outrageous and astronomical if you’re also lucky. Tickets to the opening of the first modern Olympic Games in April 1896 in Athens, Greece were one, 1.5 and 2 drachmas (which worked out to U.S. 12¢-18¢-25¢ at 1896 currency exchange rates). One hundred years later, at the Centennial celebrations at Atlanta 1996, it cost $212, $424 and $636 to attend the Opening Ceremony. That’s a staggering 4,000% increase in summer ceremony tickets.

      For the winters, for which the Squaw Valley 1960 figures are the earliest one could find, it cost $7.50 to stand in the sunshine and snow outside (part of the winter 1960 opening ceremony was held outdoors) but you were closer to the cauldron and the daytime fireworks; or $15/$25 to have a seat under the Blythe Arena roof and get closer to the protocol portions of the show. Fifty years later, at Vancouver 2010, it cost US$600 - $900 - $1200 for fully enclosed, temperature-controlled seating. That’s a staggering 6,000%+ increase for the winter seats, only over 50 years.

      However, it must be said that at Nagano 1998, the organizers recognized that the Closing was always a secondary show vs. the Opening. So they priced the Closing significantly lower—the first time in Olympic history. The Nagano opening seats (priced for the U.S. market) were the 3-tiered $231, $289 and $403. Closing tickets were $174, $231 and $346.

      At the turn-of-the-century Sydney 2000 games, the organizers offered a 4^th, cheapest category to allow indigents and students a chance to attend the Ceremonies. Some 6,000 (of a possible 100,000) seats were made available for Aus$61.00. Similarly, Vancouver and London followed suit by offering a limited number of “D” seats student-priced at Can$180 and £20.12 respectively. These “D” seats were, however, available only to the domestic market. The rest of London’s Ceremonial tickets are the highest in history: $327, $1,880, $2,979 and $3,727 for Opening and $327, $1,262, $1,880 and $2,797 for Closing. Of course, these high prices help pay for the spectacle and they come with bragging rights. There were 1.5 million applications for the 4,000 “D” seats priced at £20.12.

      At this point, it is also time to bust another myth. The best seats in the house for any stadium spectacle like Olympic ceremonies are not the premium, “A” ringside seats but the “C”,”D” or “bleacher” seats. Not only are they the cheapest but because they are the farthest from the field, they allow the spectator to fully appreciate the intricate patterns and choreographic formations. For close-ups of the athletes or featured performers, just rely on the jumbotron screen or bring your own high-powered binoculars. And another note to aspiring ceremonies groupies: if you aren’t lucky enough to score tickets to an actual Opening and Closing Ceremonies, seek out the dress rehearsals because these are nearly the same (just minus the Parade of Athletes and the actual lighting moment) as the actual thing at a fraction of the price.

      No pre-Games event sets the tone for the grand athletic competition to follow more so than the opening ceremony. As Peter Ueberroth, the man behind the uber-successful 1984 Los Angeles Games, imparted to his Ceremonies producer, David Wolper: “A good Opening will set the tone for the Games that follow. Give me a twenty-goose-bump Opening!” And that has sort of has been the unspoken mantra of every Olympic Games, summer and winter, ever since (and at $3,727 a pop for a London 2012 “AA” seat, I’m sure that’ll give your pocket more than just twenty goose-bumps).

      Obviously, ceremonies have always fascinated me. Time and again, I hear from people who have watched their first Olympic opening ceremony: Did you see that? Wow, how did they do that? And when I mention that I worked/participated in two of them, I get a quizzical look that borders on being in the presence of a beatified entity or an amiable freak. (I would hope it’s the former). In any case, an Olympic opening ceremony is such a unique phenomenon… not only presaging the main athletic tournament that follows but because it serves no known altruistic or earthly purpose other than to wow the interested spectator or budding Olympo-phile.

      Similarly, many have asked: what are the Opening ceremonies for? The ceremonies are not there to feature a particular artist or to even make money. On that one night, some 10-15,000 wannabee performers put on their best spats and spangles, ready to perform before the world; another 10,000, the cream of the world’s athletes, have similarly gathered and donned their most stylish uniforms; and another 80,000 people have paid top ducats for a monster four-hour show. Seven years’ efforts all lead up to this one night. A whole country will literally come to a stop as it struts its stuff under the global microscope--and with them, some 2.5 billion fellow earthlings will also stop whatever they are doing to watch and help celebrate that one evening of unparalleled pomp and pageantry. Put simply, it is a great way to announce to one and all that a very important event is about to happen. And it is truly a magnificent game of oneupsmanship of an almost perverse and unimaginable scale.

      Scope and Tone of the book: I tried to write for both the newcomer and the die-hard aficionado insofar as the tone of the book, and I hope to have struck a happy balance. As for scope, if it appears that the book is top-heavy with the Los Angeles, Atlanta, Athens and Beijing chapters, that is because those Games were not only true milestones in tracking the development of the genre, but from a more practical point of view, their ceremonies also had the greatest coverage, and thus the most material available from both regular sources as well as the internet. I have also used the European system of dating in an attempt to conform to the way the International Olympic Committee dates their events and documents. Nearly all games previous to Moscow 1980 had very traditional ceremonies, heavy on the protocol sections and sprinkled with the usual amounts of native folk dances and balloons. Also, being an artistic critique and historical reference book, this volume enumerates as many “firsts” and other “superlative records” as the author could possibly compile.

      And finally, I want to again stress that due to the more stringent eBook formatting limitations, I have had to leave out more than 140 images (many of them in color and original schematics from some of the Ceremonies) and numerous tables (like, for example, the full listing of international artists who have performed at Olympic ceremonies, fuller tables of the Budget and OC ticket costs, the trivia questions, or the full list of the athletes lighting the cauldron and torch statistics). This is a leaner, more pared down book--not by the author’s choice. Of course, the fuller, more lavish soft cover version is recommended and available also. Or you could ask your local library to purchase it (they’ll get a 20% discount if purchased directly from the book’s website).

      Viewable Past Ceremonies. Most of the past ceremonies discussed in this book are viewable in one or all sections on two sites: (i) highlights and portions can be found on the IOC website (www.olympic.org) or (ii) on that wonderful window СКАЧАТЬ