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Back to Facility Manager
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Whereas most of you who read this magazine have managed and attended hundreds or even thousands of events during your career, the Summer Olympics is a special and unique event to our resumé of experiences. I offer up my Top 20 reflections on my 2004 Athens Summer Olympic experience … 1. From our first step off the plane, at every turn of the head, we were bombarded by signage and reader boards featuring Olympic sponsor messages. By the time we arrived at the baggage claim in Athens, we came upon an individual holding up a sign anxious to buy tickets from travelers just arriving in town. 2. As we departed the airport and hit town, we found protestors on the streets. Their two concerns were local workers killed during hurried facility construction and the debt their country had undertaken to host the Olympics. The 1997 budget to host was $5 billion. The final price tag is being estimated at $12.08 billion (almost all public funds). Montreal, which held the 1976 Olympics, is still paying off its debt 28 years later. 3. The pollution in Athens would make Los Angeles look like a country hideaway. Yet the best athletes in the world came to compete in this environment. 4. If smoking were an Olympic sport, the Greeks would have swept all the medals. 5. Security was second to none. A total of $1.5 billion was spent (three times Sydney in 2000 and five times Salt Lake City in 2002). Additionally, 70,000 Greek troops, many with machine guns, were everywhere. High tech blimps covered 1,400 points around Athens 24/7. BBC television reported Athens to be the “safest place in the world.” I personally felt safest at the Iraqi soccer game. 6. There were 35 facilities at 12 sites. I wouldn’t say the facilities were completely done. Dust was everywhere and construction areas remained. The majority of the facilities were basic construction and functionality (framed steel buildings, plastic bench seating, portable bathrooms and concession portables outside the venues). The basketball facility was the converted old airport terminal. All facilities, though, worked for the competitions, which is really all that mattered. 7. Transportation was functional but often challenging. Trains, shuttles, cabs (which would sell themselves to the highest bidder), or special Olympic car lanes for Olympic executives and VIP’s navigated thousands of event attendees to facilities throughout Athens. There was endless printed material given out to help find your way around the city, but all of it was printed in Greek (?).We took a cab to a boxing event. The driver stopped eight times for directions. 8. The Greeks invented democracy, science, medicine, law, architecture, and many other things over the last 2500 years. Apparently since then they’ve taken time off for a break. 9. Most Olympic events were broadcast live on local television. There was a reader line at the bottom of the television screen for additional news. The reader line moved at the pace of an Indy 500 race car which no human could possibly read. At breaks, the station would show news clips. Occasionally, President Bush would be on these clips. I so wished for sub-titles. 10. The Acropolis lit up at night is as an amazing sight as one can ever imagine! 11. Food and beverage concessions: selection was minimal, pricing very low (water at 75 cents, soda at $2.50, beer at $3.75). Considering the challenging economics of hosting the Olympics, one would have to believe that the Greeks neglected a very significant income opportunity. 12. The good news: volunteers were everywhere to help out attendees. The not-so-good news: you had at best a one-in-three chance of one of these volunteers being able to help you. Either they didn’t speak your language or they just didn’t know the answer. They had only been in town one week in advance. They were polite and respectful, but Athens was hosting over 202 countries. 13. There was credentialed Olympic staff at transportation hubs with stacks of tix in their hands trying to sell tickets to that day’s events. All tickets were being sold at cost. No tickets at any point of sale had a handling or convenience cost. Many tickets were priced as low as 15-20 euros ($19-$25 US). 14. Ticket sales were reported as slow (3.6 million were sold overall), but overall sales exceeded Barcelona in 1992 and Seoul in 1988. Athens had a significantly higher ticket inventory than past Olympics (5.2 million tickets). Most events, though, were still a buyer’s market. 15. I visited the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, an amphitheatre located near the Acropolis built in 161 AD. This facility is still aggressively used to this day, and is a modern day operation with corporate sponsors and both concession and merchandise points of sale. A 1,843-year-old facility! 16. Now that the Olympics are over, Athens has 35 event facilities available for use. What will they ever be used for? How can any region ever support over 12,000+ available event days? 17. There were over 21,000 media credentials given out. On a scale of frenzied media coverage, Athens was treated like O.J., Monica, and Scott Peterson all in one. 18. The Summer Olympics, which seemingly had overmatched the host country almost to the eve of the Games, ended amid joy and relief. The fears and trepidation that paved the way upon the return of the Games’ birthplace had all evaporated. 19. My belief as to why the Olympics have such worldwide appeal is partly because of the world-class competition and athletic skills. But for two weeks, idealism stands on even footing with cynicism …. a tidal wave of hope and optimism for the world! 20. The University of California at Berkeley (my alma mater): if the university were a country, it would have placed 16th overall in the world for medals won! See you all in Beijing in 2008!
Rene G. Boisvert is president of
Allied Member Rainy Day Productions, a sports |
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© 2002-2004 International Association of Assembly Managers 635 Fritz Dr. Coppell, TX 75019 USA Phone: 972/906-7441 Fax: 972/906-7418 |