Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremony

Hey guys with the music, the drummers were South African, when they played the drumming for the teams coming out.
 
Should we spend R500 million for a great opening ceremony in 2010? The ceremony would only be about an hour and needs the pitch ready for the opening match directly after the ceremony finished. But something simply but hi-tech could be amazing.

We've hired the best before, Doug Jack and Penny Jones, for the 2003 cricket world cup opening but had less than 1/10th the budget of Sydney 2000.

I think its worth the cost in 2010.
 
capetownguy said:
Should we spend R500 million for a great opening ceremony in 2010? The ceremony would only be about an hour and needs the pitch ready for the opening match directly after the ceremony finished. But something simply but hi-tech could be amazing.

We've hired the best before, Doug Jack and Penny Jones, for the 2003 cricket world cup opening but had less than 1/10th the budget of Sydney 2000.

I think its worth the cost in 2010.
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:eek:

:sick: :sick: :sick:
 
Doug Jack and Penny Jones had worked on previous Olympic ceremonies.
The problem was budget and SABC were broadcasting it. The same SABC who know nothing about camera angles. I was involved with the ceremony and it took a lot of hard work to get it together.

Never never never get Robert Marawa to commentate or SABC to provide visuals.
The SABC are **** enough to have made Beijings Ceremony look awful.

While SABC are the 2010 host broadcasters HBS (Host Broadcasting Services) do all the camera work as they have for previous world cups. I think some people still think SABC are actually doing camera work for 2010 matches.
 
The ceremony was really good. While I dislike some of the Chinese govt's policies
you have to at least see the joy on the faces of the Chinese people especially
the kids (the little girl who sang in the beginning or that little boy who saved his
2 friends and got to march in front of the procession) and those poor women who lined the stadium and had to jump up and down for
over 2 hours while the athletes walked past, to feel happy for those
people. Good for them (the ordinary people)! :)

One thing, why so much Scottish bagpipe music? I dunno.

The other thing of course, is that Athens 2004 seems like last year
which means 4 years have passed already :(. Time flies :(.
 
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This ceremony made the previous' ceremonies pale in comparison.

Sydney's waltzing frikkin Matilda isn't proper culture. What the Chinese displayed was proper culture.

That last flame-bearer that was hoisted around the stadium was bloody spectacular. And I became all misty-eyed when the flame was lit. The flame looks awesome.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Just spent the last hour watching the opening ceremony and all I can say is the Chinese are something else ENTIRELY.

The quality and class of that show was leaps and bounds beyond anything we've ever seen before and SA will battle to present an opening ceremony for the WC that is even 10% as impressive

2008 people all drumming in time was probably one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. The lifting of the olympic rings in light was mind blowing (I still don't know how they did it). Using the entire city almost for the opening ceremony with fireworks all over the place was equally impressive and eye opening. I don't think I've ever seen a city use anything but the stadium for the opening ceremony.

From an architectural standpoint they used the design of the Birds Nest beautifully for the lighting..

All in all, I am blown away with that opening ceremony, it was absolutely incredible.
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I am going to be partly in agreement with the main premise and say that yes it was an impressive ceremony. However, I am going "disagree" slightly on a few basic points.

Firstly, we all know architecture and design are fairly personal and one man's meat is another's poison but although I agree that the lighting looked incredible on the "bird's nest", the design itself does not appeal to me. It looks very "messy" to me.

The lighting, screens etc then brings us to the second point and that is that as with most things in life if you throw enough money at something you can easily create that wow factor. We need to remember that China is currently one of the "richest" countries in the world (GDP only second behind the US and catching up quick). Now if we think about the amount of moaning about the cost of the stadiums here in SA for the 2010 WC already, can you just imagine the amount of moaning if we had attempted to place screens around the top of the whole stadium for example. Can you imagine the cost? We go slightly over budget and everyone starts asking whether that money could not be better used on housing. As a matter of interest the "bird's nest" cost about R4,5 billion rand. Moses Mabhida is about R2,6 billion. It all needs to be relative. Yes, it would be great to put on a show like China but do you honestly think we have the same budget to do so?

One thing I hope happens and that is that perhaps this event will make people in this country realise how the eyes of the world are on you when you hold an event like this and realise that any expense will be money well spent. The marketing is priceless.
 
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The Birds Nest costing R4.5 billion is PR aka BS. A stadium wrapped in steel is not immune to the steel price.
 
capetownguy said:
The Birds Nest costing R4.5 billion is PR aka BS. A stadium wrapped in steel is not immune to the steel price.
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capetownguy said:
Oh and Mo Mabhida will end up costing over R3 billion.
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Not sure of your point here but you appear to be agreeing with me but in an argumentative way? :)

My point was that the "bird's nest" cost a sh_t load more and then you add the cost of the opening ceremony and you realise that we are talking different budgets here all together.

EDIT : And to take this comparison further, for the Olympics you have one main stadium, with the soccer world cup you need a number of that type of stadium.... a different ball game all together and silly to compare. As pointed out by CTG, with cricket, rugby and soccer you also have the opening game straight after the ceremony so totally different logistics. For the Olympics the night is all about the ceremony, for the others it is the first game that is the highlight.
 
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Debbie2 said:
Been watching it here at work, bit of a drinking session going on too (explains the poor typing of late). Every time the chinese PM/president/dictator (whatever they have) comes on I shout "murderer!!!!". I'm not sure what the japanese people around here think of that.
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I guess it depends on where work is :) Is work in Japan?
 
*Boycott* Sorry I'm a Tibet Sympathizer. I didn't watch.
I hear it was superb. I now predict the hottest selling Xmas toy (probably in production for weeks already) will be action man hoisted high on motorised wires running around a screen setting fire to a big torch.:D
 
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