Secrets of the Olympic Ceremonies. Myles Garcia
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.)
Recent Ceremonial Budget Fluctuations. Vancouver 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 4th, 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