Category Archives: Opening Ceremony

Opening Ceremony of the Olympics

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Hubby had an epiphany last week.  He calls me while out and about at meetings and says that there are still tickets available for the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics.  Can I find out more info.

I must admit that I had not considered this as an option prior to the phone call from Hubby but it definitely peaked my interest.  We could fly out on Thursday, see the Opening Ceremony on Friday and fly back to South Africa on Saturday.  A once in a lifetime experience.

So I went onto the web and did some research.
Just to give you some background of what I do as this is a subject I don’t touch on much on my blog. Hubby and I are involved with the technical side of events.  When I say events – I mean BIG events.  
We do the odd and unusual events and not the day to day type events.  For example – we were involved as follows for the 2010 FIFA Football World Cup in South Africa:
  • Overall Event Managers for the Preliminary Draw
  • Local Technical Directors for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies
  • Technical Directors for the FIFA Kick Off Celebration Concert

So the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics is something we would love to see from a personal and professional point.

2010 FIFA Football World Cup

FIFA Kick Off Celebration Concert

I went on the web and looked up the Olympics. There are indeed tickets available for the Opening Ceremony. I do some more browsing – not as easy as it looks as you cannot just buy a ticket. You have to go through certain authorized representatives. So I do more digging and finally find the South African representative. According to their website all tickets are sold out. I send them an email enquiring about the availability and the process of purchasing tickets. (A week later and I have still not had a reply from them, so not surprised there are still tickets available.)

In the meantime I have costed it all out:

  • Airtickets – we have loads of airline points so we could cover the cost of the airtickets with points (if we are allowed to use them)
  • Accommodation:  Not really an issue – probably not freely available anywhere near the venue, but hey – we are not going into this blindly and are quite happy to stay on the outskirts and travel in.
  • Local transport in London – probably going to be a pain in the ass but as long as we leave early
  • Tickets – haven’t had anyone reply to emails.  Got a vague idea of prices on the web though ranging upwards of GBP1,850 each.  This is where I fell off my chair…..
This is about R23,000 per ticket – a SH!T load of money in South African terms.
So this is where the idea bit the dust.  It was a nice thought and it would have been great!