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Opening Ceremony


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Three opening ceremony rehearsals in Olympic Stadium. Anyone knows how to get tickets for dress rehearsal? Are they sold/ given out in previous games? And also isn't there a big chance some audience will leak out major plot details after seeing the dress rehearsal? It's easy to control the performers but for the 80,000 crowd why would they care?

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/olympics/olympic-news/london-2012-olympics-60000-people-to-practise-their-routines-in-three-secret-opening-ceremony-rehearsals-7827271.html

They have to do a dress rehearsal though. Other recent hosts have as well. I guess you lecture the audience sternly, screen them for recording equipment and hope for the best.

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Allegedly the song Paul McCartney will perform at the opening ceremony will be "Hey Jude":

http://www.digitalsp...r-olympics.html

Frankly, I could imagine better scenarios than the stadium's audience chanting "Naaa-na-na-na-na-naaaaa-na-na-na-naaaa!", especially towards the end of the ceremony. It could take the magic of those moments shortly before or after the cauldron lighting away.

Oh dear god, him performing that song is so irrelevant to the opening ceremony. Closing ceremony I dont mind, what I really don't understand is why he is always treated like the most important figure in this country next to the Queen. Any special event he is always the one who get the best slot. I just don't get him, sorry.

They have to do a dress rehearsal though. Other recent hosts have as well. I guess you lecture the audience sternly, screen them for recording equipment and hope for the best.

Who normally get the tickets? I didnt hear anything about dress rehearsal tickets being on sale anywhere.

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They have to do a dress rehearsal though. Other recent hosts have as well. I guess you lecture the audience sternly, screen them for recording equipment and hope for the best.

Well, one of the reasons for the final dress rehearsal is to have a back-up tape in case anything should go wrong technically on the actual Opening night. So how can you have flashbulbs going off on "live" coverage, and then, all of a sudden--if they have to pull the back-up tape, nothing there? It would look very fake. So, photography of course will be allowed during the dress rehearsals.

The thing is, some of the major surprises like the Lighting of the cauldron (or other major surprises) may NOT or WILL not be shown or performed during the dress rehearsals. Otherwise, you need a fresh audience to test and tweak your show and you need those bodies for the final audio balance test.

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Well, one of the reasons for the final dress rehearsal is to have a back-up tape in case anything should go wrong technically on the actual Opening night. So how can you have flashbulbs going off on "live" coverage, and then, all of a sudden--if they have to pull the back-up tape, nothing there? It would look very fake. So, photography of course will be allowed during the dress rehearsals.

The thing is, some of the major surprises like the Lighting of the cauldron (or other major surprises) may NOT or WILL not be shown or performed during the dress rehearsals. Otherwise, you need a fresh audience to test and tweak your show and you need those bodies for the final audio balance test.

If they allow photography, what's to prevent everything from going viral that night?

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And that bit above/\/\/\ is just one of the many "secrets" that can be found and revealed in www.secretolympiceremony.com ;)

If they allow photography, what's to prevent everything from going viral that night?

Reply to AthensFan: Nothing. That's a risk they take. How do you collect cameras from 75,000 people and then try to return them afterwards? You would be sorting our cameras to the rightful owners until the cows come home.

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If you're pulling back up tape, you're in big trouble anyway and the world WILL find out. So there aren't flash bulbs? There are only stand-ins for athletes surely that would be a major inconsistency. It doesn't make any sense to me to allow photography.

I wasn't at the Athens dress rehearsal but I heard they did everything in the program (including flaming rings and all, but just mimed the lighting of the cauldron.

You don't have to collect cameras. You tell people in advance not to bring them and have staff patrolling the audience. Just like a preview movie screening.

In any case, they are not going to INVITE photography just so they have flashbulbs for back-up footage!

If everyone were encouraged to photograph the dress rehearsal, we wouldve seen a whole lot more leaks.

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We had at least one preview video from someone in the audience at the dress rehearsal in Vancouver, and I'm certain we'll have that this time around as well.

But I don't understand for what they want to use back-up tapes. I mean, the opening ceremony will be broadcast around the world live, without any tape delay. So everyone will notice if something goes wrong and then it's already too late to run the back-up tape and pretend that everything's going fine.

The organisers of the 1989 Eurovision Song Contest tried to do that when a "William Tell" stunt went wrong during the interval act -- and whom did they try to fool with that? (Go to 8:40 and watch out for the "replay")

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the dress rehearsals are the saturday - monday and wednesday b4 friday's evening opening.

i would hope that us volunteers get a couple of tickets for our nearest and dearest - but nothing has been said and i would suspect that they will go to sponsors and government cronies! i live in hope lol!

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the dress rehearsals are the saturday - monday and wednesday b4 friday's evening opening.

i would hope that us volunteers get a couple of tickets for our nearest and dearest - but nothing has been said and i would suspect that they will go to sponsors and government cronies! i live in hope lol!

Another fellow Games Maker here living in hope for a Dress Rehearsal ticket! I've got my Accomodation booked from the 23rd July onwards just in case I get a chance for either the Monday or Wednesday.

Hope your rehearsals are going well. I'm on the EVS team :)

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I believe it is precedent that every volunteer gets 2 rehersal tickets. I know that was the case for Vancouver, Torino and Athens.

Fingers crossed!

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Surely after the dress rehearsals in every Games, even without the leak of photos, there's murmurs of what things going to be like leaked by the spectators no? I would imagine now this is do much easier to post a random anonymous comment on Twitter than any Games before.

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I'm not sure why NBC didn't show that (or the broadcast you watched in NZ). The globe projection shows in the official DVD. Thanks for confirming the program order. I thought that's what it was, but hadn't gone back to watch....

I did not watch the NBC broadcast, Im from Chile... I watched the international one.

In some videos on youtube there are segment fom antoher direction such as the Klepsidra segment that was shown on Korean TV...

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For the Sydney's Saturday night rehearsal (second last one before OC), we were allowed to bring cameras in and I did take photos. I'll dig a couple of these up and post them shortly. They did everything except the entire Cauldron segment and ended the rehearsal at the end of Tina Arena's song which was just before Raelene Boyle and Betty Cutherbert entered the Stadium with the torch during the actual OC on Fri night. I was a member of Sydney's Olympic Club who all got 2 dress rehearsal tickets each as part of the membership fee.

For Athens, cameras were not allowed in at all for the Tues night dress rehearsal at all. I quickly found a volunteer supervisor hut near the main gates and the volunteer supervisor locked mine away till I collected it after the rehearsal. In Athens they also did everything except the entire Cauldron segment and ended the rehearsal straight after the symbolic torchbearers were flying up to the centre high above the arena. I got one only ticket as a volunteer but no warning not to bring cameras. However, thats not to say that the others who got tickets that were there were not given prior warning not to bring cameras as a condition of entry. As I was on my own, had I not convinced the volunteer supervisor to mind my camera i would have had to take it home and missed much of it.

I remember have watched Atlanta's dress rehearsal parts on TV. Even in Barcelona there was many international media on the rehearsal. Since Athens, that came into a national secret. I remember I red that year that some people who attended the dress reharsal in OAKA Stadium were selling information to the international press. What Korean did with Chinese by airing images of the dress rehearsal was not fair, but anyway I was eager looking for those images!!! I think Vancouver Opening Ceremony has been the most secret ever, because none knew antyhing until the very moment of the broadcast. For the Panamerican Games in Guadalajara, there were many people who posted images of the rehearsal on youtube and, as Beijing did, they decided to show one minute of the official version to be broadcasted on Internet and TV...

What is going to happen this year??

Should Britishers be able to keep such secret as Canadians did perfectly???

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i would hope that us volunteers get a couple of tickets for our nearest and dearest - but nothing has been said and i would suspect that they will go to sponsors and government cronies! i live in hope lol!

I recall reading something a couple of months ago that suggested that the 70,000 Gamesmakers would make up at least part of the audience for the Opening rehearsals. If they all got one ticket to bring a guest, that would pretty much fill two dress rehearsals and then perhaps the cast and crew get two or three tickets to 'fill' the last one. Do they need an entirely full stadium for the dress rehearsals? If it's all volunteers/cast and friends, then might be easier to keep it more secret than if it was random strangers who had 'bought' tickets.

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Should Britishers be able to keep such secret as Canadians did perfectly???

The Canadians didn't keep the secrets perfectly. As I mentioned above, we had at least one guy filming at Vancouver's dress rehearsal and later posting a clip on YouTube. Furthermore, we had loads of tweets about the dress rehearsal (and even about previous rehearsals by some participating volunteers, although those tweets were hardly specific about the content of the ceremony). And we also had pictures of the burning cauldron before the opening day.

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Allegedly the song Paul McCartney will perform at the opening ceremony will be "Hey Jude":

http://www.digitalsp...r-olympics.html

Frankly, I could imagine better scenarios than the stadium's audience chanting "Naaa-na-na-na-na-naaaaa-na-na-na-naaaa!", especially towards the end of the ceremony. It could take the magic of those moments shortly before or after the cauldron lighting away.

This is just weird, I just don't get it.

Surely all booked performers would have been made aware of confidentiality agreements, and he just comes out and says he's in the opening ceremony?

And the song, I can't see anything in it that has any relevance to the event. Perfect for a closing ceremony, definitely , but for the opening ceremony? Light the cauldron and then...... why wouldn't ya sing Hey Jude.

Very very odd.

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If he's playing at the end after the cauldron lighting, I wouldn't even call him part of the ceremony proper. Beijing had a musical performance after its cauldron lighting too but just to keep everyone from all leaving the stadium at once. And it's very possible some broadcasters may not show his performance, but instead have it playing in the background of the commentators making their closing remarks behind their media desk in the stadium.

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I dunno, if you're going to have such a big name, and someone who is inevitably going to be performing in one of the two ceremonies, I think you'd make a big deal out of it.

The only thing I can think of, is it's going to be central as the soundtrack to a big pyrotechnic display, then I guess anything would work.

Athens had Peristeri, maybe this is what London will have.

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Atlanta and Sydney were both before the Internet age had come into its own. I don't think they can really be used as evidence.

I'm not keen on McCartney. Yes, everybody loves the Beatles and they're one of the most famous British exports. But just McCartney? Meh......

If he's playing at the end after the cauldron lighting, I wouldn't even call him part of the ceremony proper. Beijing had a musical performance after its cauldron lighting too but just to keep everyone from all leaving the stadium at once. And it's very possible some broadcasters may not show his performance, but instead have it playing in the background of the commentators making their closing remarks behind their media desk in the stadium.

I agree with Mattygs. They won't reduce McCartney to glorified exit music. Hey Jude is a really bizarre choice anyway.

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I don't like the fact that it's a rather biased choice to allow McCartney an established artiste to perform his own song in the opening ceremony. I prefer just the official Olympic songs and anthems, patriotic/ folk songs or original Olympic compositions should only be allowed to play in the opening ceremony. I am fine with him or other artistes performing in closing with their own song, just not in opening.

The same be said about having the James Bond opening segment (if it's true). Why is Londons opening beginning to turn into a shameless plugging opportunity for these worlds biggest names?? Yes I understand they are British icons, but isn't the opening ceremony suppose to maintain neutral and not endorse/ bias to a virtually commercial entity? I feel by having them both will actually cheapen the dignity of the ceremony, turning it into something like the Royal Variety Show.

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I'm not keen on McCartney. Yes, everybody loves the Beatles and they're one of the most famous British exports. But just McCartney? Meh......

My thoughts exactly. He really is not that great solo. Having him at all big event just because he was part of Beatles is like flogging a dead horse. I rather much they give this valuable opportunity to some up and coming artists or unknowns instead of someone who's already had it all.

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I don't like the fact that it's a rather biased choice to allow McCartney an established artiste to perform his own song in the opening ceremony. I prefer just the official Olympic songs and anthems, patriotic/ folk songs or original Olympic compositions should only be allowed to play in the opening ceremony. I am fine with him or other artistes performing in closing with their own song, just not in opening.

The same be said about having the James Bond opening segment (if it's true). Why is Londons opening beginning to turn into a shameless plugging opportunity for these worlds biggest names?? Yes I understand they are British icons, but isn't the opening ceremony suppose to maintain neutral and not endorse/ bias to a virtually commercial entity? I feel by having them both will actually cheapen the dignity of the ceremony, turning it into something like the Royal Variety Show.

I TOTALLY agree with this. It remains to be seen if these rumors are true, however. So I think we need to wait and see.

The comments about imitating Sydney worry me though -- not because I thought Sydney was bad (not my fave, but it had many great moments). I'm worried because Sydney was "fun" and I can see some Brits thinking James Bond and Hey Jude would be similarly "fun." I'm concerned that it could just be commercial and tacky.

The OC really sets the tone for each Olympics. It does a LOT to define each edition of the Games. I hope that London does not miscalculate.

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