Theme: Olympic games opening and closing ceremonies

The government doubled the budget of the Olympic games opening and closing ceremonies to £80million in December last year. The extra money comes from the £9.3billion Olympic public funding package to help the ceremonies to be more spectacular allowing for the great legacy to be viewed by the world of sport.

The opening ceremony is usually the heart of the Olympic games where countries try to represent their culture in a show that brings together all cultures under one roof. Minister for Sport and Olympics Hugh Robertson said,

“We have invested that £41million because it’s about the impression that people take away from this country.”

With the opening ceremony taking place in the 80,000 capacity Olympic Stadium, it underpins the legacy behind the stadium that is at the heart of London 2012 and all previous Olympic Games. Continue reading

Uncategorized: Olympic Stadium following the games

With the most recent update from West Ham United being very positive about adopting the newly built Olympic Stadium it has opened the concern of whether the Olympic legacy will be maintained by the football club. Olympic legacy leader Sebastian Coe has pushed for the athletics track to be maintained following the Olympics, West Ham support this but Tottenham do not. Through supporting this lead of legacy it heightens West Ham’s chances of housing their football at the Olympic Stadium following the games. Continue reading

Data: Newham Council’s spending

The Council has incurred costs relating to the Bidding stage of £103,980.20. All of these costs will be included in the Stadium Company costs, and will therefore be recouped by the Council. (whatdotheyknow) Here are some of the incurred costs to date that was requested by Mike Law:

The Council has paid £38,447.50 for financial due diligence and LBN advice on the Stadium Company Business Plan development, and committed for costs of up to another £12,725 of advice as part of the Process. This advice has been provided by KPMG. Continue reading

Question: Have West Ham accepted defeat?

It has recently emerged that an architect linked with the Olympic games building projects has been the individual that has arguably ruined West Ham United’s chances of occupying the £468million Olympic Stadium following this years games. The architect is named as Steve Lawrence, he complained to the European Union about West Hame receiving a £40million loan from Newham Council to be owners of the 80,000 seater stadium.

The local authority offered the loan to West Ham as part of their partnership to act as co-tenants of the stadium, under which the ground would have housed a school and community sports facilities within the complex. Continue reading

Tool: Self-Accredit with #media2012 to gain access to report on London 2012

Having trouble gaining access to accreditation to report on the London 2012 Olympic Games? You can self-accredition is now open with with #media2012, an independent newswire and social media centre for covering the Olympic Games.

This follows the self-accreditation process in Vancouver 2010, where over 300 people used True North Media House passes to gain access to communities, institutions and stories around the Winter Olympics, #media2012 encourages journalists, media producers and citizen journalists to sign up to report on all aspects of the Olympic Games across the country. Find out who is working in your area here.

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Theme: Worker Rights, Unions and the Development of the Olympic Site

There are a number of existing reports regarding worker’s rights during the process of developing the Olympic sites. Some of these reports are below.

This might be something that also links to the Games Makers, the 70,000 strong voluntary forces who are essential for the running of the games. What does it mean for such a large workforce are asked to work for free?

Continue reading

Data: Help me find the mis-information being spread at #socialympics

This morning a Social Media Week, London event looking at the social media around the Olympic games called “#socialympics” was stirring a lot of interest on twitter relating to discussions of big data, history of new media and mega events and the revolutionary effects of social media and production/distribution of the games. Speakers include (from the site):

Our panel will feature Chris Tomlinson, record-breaking British long jumper and double Olympian; Gordon Lott, Head of London 2012 Partnership and Group Sponsorship at Lloyds TSB, the London Games’ first domestic sponsor; Hugh Chambers, Chief Commercial Officer of the British Olympic Association; Paul Kelso, Chief Sports Reporter of the Daily Telegraph; Alex Miller, CEO of Engine’s social media agency Jam, Engine’s social media and mobile agency; with myself in the chair. (3)

All individuals who have an invested interest in the Olympics and/or their brand sponsorship.

Abi Sawyer drew me the this tweet made by @SynergyCarsten:

This suggests that social media (or web 2.0) was not present during the Athens 2004 games. This claim is hard to believe, seeing that it only takes a quick google search to find blog posts still available around the time from independent (or citizen) journalists which makes me think that there is a lot of misinformation being spread about what really happened on the web during the last 12 years of games.

I’ve extracted the data from twitter (using @mhawksey‘s archive spreadsheet too) of what was said at the event and how and who was sharing it – I think it would be benefitial going through the comments to see what is being promoted as an authoritative opinion of social media and the Olympic Games. Can you help me?

The data is available here.

Document: Host City Contract

The Olympic Games are awarded by the International Olympic Committee seven years before delivery after an intense bidding process between other candidate cities (something that I will be writing about further in the coming weeks). When the rights to host the Games are handed over to the winning nation, an Organising Committee is formed and the host city contract is signed between them and the IOC, promising that the certain measures are undertaken to ensure the smooth and consistent delivery of the Games.

When we hear stories about changes to bylaws, opportunities to allow stakeholders such as sponsors access to VIP services (like the Olympic Lanes) and to develop on particular land area, many of these decisions were made very much in advance of the bidding process and signed off as being a ‘given’ in terms of the development process. This is because the IOC see the Olympic Games very much as their ‘baby’ and in a way, is the only product that they have to see to the world. The exclusivity of access and association to those internationally recognised five rings.

If you have questions about why particular things are happening for London 2012, then you can almost always find those details set out in the host city contract. It is available, thanks to Games Monitor, here as a PDF.

Data: Local Profiles and Insight on Culture and Sport in England

Thanks to Tony Hirst for pointing that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport have some core data available on culture and sport in England. It is available national and regionally and ranges from investment, education, tourism, health and so on. Is there anybody using this relating to the Olympics; and/or are their any instances of visualisations of this data?

The data tables are available here.