| Articles |
Northwest Meetings
&
Events magazine, winter 2008
Two Years to Go
(planning for 2010 Winter Olympics)
When TV-watchers around the world
turn to the opening ceremonies of the next Winter Olympics—to be broadcast
from Vancouver, B.C. on Feb. 12, 2010—they’ll give scant thought to
the planning behind them.
But planning it will have been—with capital P. Since Vancouver, together with the Municipality of Whistler, won the Winter Olympic bid in 2003, preparations for the 17-day event, and the subsequent Paralympic Games, has become increasingly intense.
And although opening ceremonies at BC Place stadium will last only two hours—and most of the three billion TV viewers will recall only a few iconic moments—the work to pull them together will have involved thousands of people over several years.
Well over two years before the Big Day, Program Director for Ceremonies, Marti Kulich, cornered at the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) headquarters in East Vancouver, reaches for perspective.
The Winter Olympics, Kulich explains, embraces 54 functions—just a few of which are accreditation, transportation, security and broadcasting. Ceremonies—which includes the openings, closings, medal ceremonies, team welcomes and an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Congress opening—is only one of the 54.
“All have started from scratch, and each is building its own ‘company’,” Kulich says. “And at the same time as you build vertically, you have to integrate horizontally. So that the legal department has the appropriate contracts, for example, or that transportation is aware of our needs.
“People outside the box of the games say, ‘You’ve got years to go… what are you spending your time doing?’ The reality is we’re incredibly busy, as is every one of the functions, building a solid foundation.”
In short, there’s more to Olympics planning than meets the eye.
Along the way there are milestones. They’ve included approval of the VANOC financial plan—an inter-functional process that took months. “If transportation is going to move 7,000 performers to the stadium for a dress rehearsal… and that isn’t captured in the transportation budget, then we’ve got a house of cards,” Kulich points out.
Pivotal staff have been hired—most recently the producer of opening and closing ceremonies, Australian David Atkins, who delivered the same ceremonies at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. With Atkins’ arrival here, a 10-member ceremonies team will get down to the nuts-and-bolts of planning Canada’s biggest ever international spectacle.
Says Atkins of the bookend ceremonies he’ll oversee: “These are once-only events. It’s a highly charged experience—with years of work coming down to one night, one time, one place. The pressure is quite extraordinary on every member of the team.”
Atkins will also oversee the live musical performances to follow nightly medal ceremonies at BC Place. These shows, he says, “will provide the victory ceremonies with a level of theater and celebration not replicated at previous games.”
The Vancouver-Whistler Olympics theme— “celebrating the possible”—will permeate the games. The ceremonies team must then decide how to depict Canada, B.C. and Vancouver in images seen around the world.
Says Kulich: “Opening ceremonies is both a welcome and a chance to say, ‘This is who we are.’ Yet we have many facets to Canada…and a very limited piece of time.” The planners, he adds, “will focus intensely on every minute.”
Up to 70 per cent of the 120-minute opening is devoted to “protocol”—the entry parade of athletes, Olympic flag raising, cauldron lighting and Olympic hymn. The remainder is dubbed “cultural” and, says Kulich “with a very limited window, we’ll cherry-pick the messages that we want people to grab hold of.”
Then you have two audiences—the 50,000 in the stadium, primarily the host community, and the billions of TV viewers, a majority of whom speak a language other than Canada’s official languages, English and French. Therefore visual images, ideally striking and iconic, and music—what Kulich characterizes as “the emotional driver” of ceremonies—will be the primary modes of communication.
For the first time in Olympic history, the $40-million opening ceremonies will be held indoors. Taking weather— “the single greatest risk to the delivery of ceremonies,” Atkins sys—out of the equation will, he adds, “free up the team to explore new ideas and push new boundaries.” Additional surfaces will allow for more projections, lighting and special effects.
The most popular feature of opening ceremonies is said to be when the more than 80 national teams, especially outfitted, walk into the stadium behind a flag-bearer. “This will be one of the moments that you’ll remember,” Kulich predicts.
Yet Kulich points out that this parade is still “protocol,” and that planners must fine ways to “embed” their messages within it. “How you present the parade, and what you accompany it with, or how to coach the audience to participate, will go a long way to defining your culture,” he says. “Culture isn’t just the performing segment, it’s the whole package. And this is what makes ceremonies so interesting.”
The other key relationship is television. While the VANOC team will deliver a live show, they want all the broadcasters—to include the Olympic Broadcasting Services, Canada’s national CTV and innumerable other national networks—to be fully in sync. Says Kulich: “We have to be sure that they’re following our story line—that they’re transmitting the key information we’ve worked so hard on. Because how the national broadcasters chose to cover the ceremonies, with their 30 or 40 cameras, is going to determine how we’ll be viewed by the bulk of the world.”
The entire ceremony will be story-boarded … “so broadcasters know exactly how they’re going to cover this—which camera, which angle… what is the close-up, the wide shot, the medium shot… absolutely,” he continues. “We have to be certain about how this show is transmitted.” Key moments, such as appearances of the Olympic flag, to be carried by eight specially chosen athletes, are paramount. “We’re going ensure that each athlete is highlighted at an appropriate moment, so that commentators around the world can say something about that individual,” Kulich explains. Another task for ceremonies is the provision to broadcasters of hundreds of pages of color commentary.
“And we need costume design, prop design, lighting and audio. We’ll contract much of this out to major producers. It’s a major system.”
“The bottom line is that capturing Canada is the challenge for us,” Kulich adds. “And it’s a selective process—like any piece of art work.
“Ceremonies are also about competence of delivery—of creating a presence in the international business community.” And ultimately, as in most event planning, it’s about problem solving, Kulich concludes. “You need to be a provider of solutions if you want to work within the Games world. If you can solve problems, it can be one of the most invigorating and challenging projects you’ll ever be involved in.
“I’m a huge believe in the Games because I’ve never found anything else that requires every bit of everything that I can deliver. That’s what it does. And that’s the opportunity of it.”
The Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympic Games runs Feb. 12-28, 2010; the Paralympic Games, March 12-21, 2010. Website: www.Vancouver2010.com
Tourism Vancouver
Working with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, has developed a means to match visiting organizations with venues for a hospitality suite or other Olympic-related events.
In describing its Games Client Venue Program, Tourism Vancouver Vice-President Walt Judas recalls how VISA, a Worldwide Olympic Partner, established a hospitality suite at a Torino rowing club complex during the 2006 winter games.
It served as a hub for guests of the payment-card giant, as well for news conferences and social gatherings. As with most hospitality suites, the building was distinctively decorated and equipped for the duration of the games. At the same time, VISA headquartered itself at a Torino hotel, where other meetings and events were held.
The Games Client Venue Program evolved from a survey into a master-database of spaces—in Greater Vancouver and the Whistler region—that might suit visiting hosts. Some are obvious, such as Vancouver’s Roundhouse community centre or the Vancouver Art Gallery. But the database includes boardrooms and lesser-known restaurants—even routinely overlooked spaces like “a great lobby or unbelievable penthouse,” Judas says—that might work well for a particular group or event.
Tourism Vancouver is using the database to find hosting spaces for partners, sponsors, official supporters and suppliers, sports federations, national organizing committees, and other corporate and non-profit guests.
Games partners, sponsors and other major contributors will get first dibs. At the same time, Tourism Vancouver wants member businesses make the best use of their spaces during this potentially lucrative period. Rather than function as a hospitality suite, says Judas, “some restaurants, for example, might be better served by staying open for business.”
In the end, the hope is that the program will be a win-win-win—that it will work for visiting clients, for Tourism Vancouver members, and for the hundreds of visitors who will enjoy what will be, at venues through the region, some great hospitality.
Finally, Tourism Vancouver expects that the Games Client Venue Program will leave a legacy. “We’ll have a database of a number of unique venues which will be of benefit future meeting venue planners,” he says.
But planning it will have been—with capital P. Since Vancouver, together with the Municipality of Whistler, won the Winter Olympic bid in 2003, preparations for the 17-day event, and the subsequent Paralympic Games, has become increasingly intense.
And although opening ceremonies at BC Place stadium will last only two hours—and most of the three billion TV viewers will recall only a few iconic moments—the work to pull them together will have involved thousands of people over several years.
Well over two years before the Big Day, Program Director for Ceremonies, Marti Kulich, cornered at the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) headquarters in East Vancouver, reaches for perspective.
The Winter Olympics, Kulich explains, embraces 54 functions—just a few of which are accreditation, transportation, security and broadcasting. Ceremonies—which includes the openings, closings, medal ceremonies, team welcomes and an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Congress opening—is only one of the 54.
“All have started from scratch, and each is building its own ‘company’,” Kulich says. “And at the same time as you build vertically, you have to integrate horizontally. So that the legal department has the appropriate contracts, for example, or that transportation is aware of our needs.
“People outside the box of the games say, ‘You’ve got years to go… what are you spending your time doing?’ The reality is we’re incredibly busy, as is every one of the functions, building a solid foundation.”
In short, there’s more to Olympics planning than meets the eye.
Along the way there are milestones. They’ve included approval of the VANOC financial plan—an inter-functional process that took months. “If transportation is going to move 7,000 performers to the stadium for a dress rehearsal… and that isn’t captured in the transportation budget, then we’ve got a house of cards,” Kulich points out.
Pivotal staff have been hired—most recently the producer of opening and closing ceremonies, Australian David Atkins, who delivered the same ceremonies at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. With Atkins’ arrival here, a 10-member ceremonies team will get down to the nuts-and-bolts of planning Canada’s biggest ever international spectacle.
Says Atkins of the bookend ceremonies he’ll oversee: “These are once-only events. It’s a highly charged experience—with years of work coming down to one night, one time, one place. The pressure is quite extraordinary on every member of the team.”
Atkins will also oversee the live musical performances to follow nightly medal ceremonies at BC Place. These shows, he says, “will provide the victory ceremonies with a level of theater and celebration not replicated at previous games.”
The Vancouver-Whistler Olympics theme— “celebrating the possible”—will permeate the games. The ceremonies team must then decide how to depict Canada, B.C. and Vancouver in images seen around the world.
Says Kulich: “Opening ceremonies is both a welcome and a chance to say, ‘This is who we are.’ Yet we have many facets to Canada…and a very limited piece of time.” The planners, he adds, “will focus intensely on every minute.”
Up to 70 per cent of the 120-minute opening is devoted to “protocol”—the entry parade of athletes, Olympic flag raising, cauldron lighting and Olympic hymn. The remainder is dubbed “cultural” and, says Kulich “with a very limited window, we’ll cherry-pick the messages that we want people to grab hold of.”
Then you have two audiences—the 50,000 in the stadium, primarily the host community, and the billions of TV viewers, a majority of whom speak a language other than Canada’s official languages, English and French. Therefore visual images, ideally striking and iconic, and music—what Kulich characterizes as “the emotional driver” of ceremonies—will be the primary modes of communication.
For the first time in Olympic history, the $40-million opening ceremonies will be held indoors. Taking weather— “the single greatest risk to the delivery of ceremonies,” Atkins sys—out of the equation will, he adds, “free up the team to explore new ideas and push new boundaries.” Additional surfaces will allow for more projections, lighting and special effects.
The most popular feature of opening ceremonies is said to be when the more than 80 national teams, especially outfitted, walk into the stadium behind a flag-bearer. “This will be one of the moments that you’ll remember,” Kulich predicts.
Yet Kulich points out that this parade is still “protocol,” and that planners must fine ways to “embed” their messages within it. “How you present the parade, and what you accompany it with, or how to coach the audience to participate, will go a long way to defining your culture,” he says. “Culture isn’t just the performing segment, it’s the whole package. And this is what makes ceremonies so interesting.”
The other key relationship is television. While the VANOC team will deliver a live show, they want all the broadcasters—to include the Olympic Broadcasting Services, Canada’s national CTV and innumerable other national networks—to be fully in sync. Says Kulich: “We have to be sure that they’re following our story line—that they’re transmitting the key information we’ve worked so hard on. Because how the national broadcasters chose to cover the ceremonies, with their 30 or 40 cameras, is going to determine how we’ll be viewed by the bulk of the world.”
The entire ceremony will be story-boarded … “so broadcasters know exactly how they’re going to cover this—which camera, which angle… what is the close-up, the wide shot, the medium shot… absolutely,” he continues. “We have to be certain about how this show is transmitted.” Key moments, such as appearances of the Olympic flag, to be carried by eight specially chosen athletes, are paramount. “We’re going ensure that each athlete is highlighted at an appropriate moment, so that commentators around the world can say something about that individual,” Kulich explains. Another task for ceremonies is the provision to broadcasters of hundreds of pages of color commentary.
“And we need costume design, prop design, lighting and audio. We’ll contract much of this out to major producers. It’s a major system.”
“The bottom line is that capturing Canada is the challenge for us,” Kulich adds. “And it’s a selective process—like any piece of art work.
“Ceremonies are also about competence of delivery—of creating a presence in the international business community.” And ultimately, as in most event planning, it’s about problem solving, Kulich concludes. “You need to be a provider of solutions if you want to work within the Games world. If you can solve problems, it can be one of the most invigorating and challenging projects you’ll ever be involved in.
“I’m a huge believe in the Games because I’ve never found anything else that requires every bit of everything that I can deliver. That’s what it does. And that’s the opportunity of it.”
The Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympic Games runs Feb. 12-28, 2010; the Paralympic Games, March 12-21, 2010. Website: www.Vancouver2010.com
Tourism Vancouver
Working with the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, has developed a means to match visiting organizations with venues for a hospitality suite or other Olympic-related events.
In describing its Games Client Venue Program, Tourism Vancouver Vice-President Walt Judas recalls how VISA, a Worldwide Olympic Partner, established a hospitality suite at a Torino rowing club complex during the 2006 winter games.
It served as a hub for guests of the payment-card giant, as well for news conferences and social gatherings. As with most hospitality suites, the building was distinctively decorated and equipped for the duration of the games. At the same time, VISA headquartered itself at a Torino hotel, where other meetings and events were held.
The Games Client Venue Program evolved from a survey into a master-database of spaces—in Greater Vancouver and the Whistler region—that might suit visiting hosts. Some are obvious, such as Vancouver’s Roundhouse community centre or the Vancouver Art Gallery. But the database includes boardrooms and lesser-known restaurants—even routinely overlooked spaces like “a great lobby or unbelievable penthouse,” Judas says—that might work well for a particular group or event.
Tourism Vancouver is using the database to find hosting spaces for partners, sponsors, official supporters and suppliers, sports federations, national organizing committees, and other corporate and non-profit guests.
Games partners, sponsors and other major contributors will get first dibs. At the same time, Tourism Vancouver wants member businesses make the best use of their spaces during this potentially lucrative period. Rather than function as a hospitality suite, says Judas, “some restaurants, for example, might be better served by staying open for business.”
In the end, the hope is that the program will be a win-win-win—that it will work for visiting clients, for Tourism Vancouver members, and for the hundreds of visitors who will enjoy what will be, at venues through the region, some great hospitality.
Finally, Tourism Vancouver expects that the Games Client Venue Program will leave a legacy. “We’ll have a database of a number of unique venues which will be of benefit future meeting venue planners,” he says.