What the Olympic opening ceremony event can teach us about event production.
Contributions by Simon Baird, Sophie Dervan and Natasha Richardson
A ticket to the Olympic opening ceremony is as good as one to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory. Known for its unforgettable moments, treasured glimpses of international pride and historic grandeur, the decision to spread the Paris 2024 opening ceremony event across the city has been hotly debated in our office.
Many (in the creative team especially) have championed the art of storytelling through performance, arguing for the array of interesting creative opportunities presented by rooftops, landmarks and talent.
Our production team found themselves scratching their heads (and clapping their hands) at the immense logistical challenges of attempting a ceremony at this stage. One thing though, we have all agreed on.
This opening ceremony event was designed for telly.
With our audience-first cap firmly snug, it’s time to unpick that a little more.
“The ambition of spreading the opening ceremony event across the city was a bold choice – it’s easy to see how it was pitched in – wonderful from a celebrating the city point of view but clearly posed some big creative challenges balancing artistic vision with budget and execution.”
—Simon Baird, Executive Creative Director
Audience-first: but which one?
The Parisian city landmarks played a central role in opening the event. In fact, spreading the event across multiple locations brought a never-seen-before originality to Paris 2024 (historically taking place in a single stadium). From behind our TV screens, we loved the emotional horse-boat sequence, which integrated beautiful underscoring with natural elements and was visually stunning, especially thanks to the contrasting themes.
But, spreading a show like this around a big city isn’t easy. The event fell into the trap of creating an interesting array of what felt like stand-alone moments, which ultimately felt disjointed from one another. Speaking to our French team, those standing by the Seine barely caught a glimpse of the live-action, aside from the TikTok frenzy post-event.
Send me the floor plan… of Paris
It goes without saying that an expansive event layout of this scale required meticulous planning and coordination to ensure synchronisation across multiple locations. Usually, the Olympic opening ceremonies are held in a stadium setting, which facilitates controlled environments for visual and audio elements. This year’s approach introduced variables such as weather conditions and inconsistent visual backdrops… conceptually a great idea, but practically, more of a nightmare.
From a production standpoint, managing audio-visual coherence and maintaining audience engagement across dispersed settings proved challenging and we could see it in the many mistakes and delays.
Backdrop Flop: Is this the shot we will remember Paris 2024 by?
The choice to organise the parade on the Seine – while appealing on paper – highlighted the difficulties in controlling aesthetic consistency in outdoor activations. The river’s grey appearance (unhelped by the rain) detracted from the intended beauty and grandiosity of the water parade.
Effective production requires balancing artistic vision with practical execution, ensuring that every element contributes to a cohesive narrative. The opening ceremony event missed the mark here.
“The words ‘wet weather contingency’ come to mind. The Moulin Rouge team were handed a tough card with having to can-can on a 2.5m wet platform.”
—Sophie Dervan, Project Director
Local culture lean in
The creatives behind the opening ceremony event deserve applause for their ambitious and innovative approach to celebrating the host city.
The highlights were the light show featured in Celine Dion’s performance, which evoked goosebumps, and the street performers and acrobats, particularly the masked performer carrying the flame across rooftops.
The colourful, artistic and slightly rebellious culture of Paris came to life through ‘headless’ singers, Lady Gaga in feathers, drag queens, the Greek god of wine (skin tinted blue) who stole the show, and many more moments.
Plenty loved the theatrics. Plenty did not. All press is good press, right?
Final thoughts
The Paris 2024 Olympic opening ceremony event was a bold showcase of creativity and a citywide celebration. While it dazzled TV audiences with innovative storytelling, the dispersed format posed significant logistical challenges and left on-site audiences with a fragmented, perhaps even poor experience.
Our biggest take away? The importance of harmonising artistic vision with seamless production execution.
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