Less than a year after China hosted the Olympics, Beijing is planning to put its stunningly choreographed opening ceremony back on as a regular evening show at the “Bird’s Nest”, the main stadium built for the games.
Zhang Yimou, the film director who once had his works banned in his home country but is now emerging as the ruling Communist party’s chief master of ceremonies, set in scene the key cultural achievements of China at the Beijing 2008 opening ceremony. His show included achievements such as the invention of printing and kung fu, using about 15,000 soldiers, armed police and students.
While the show stunned many with its record-breaking scale and perfect choreography, some spectators said it raised associations of fascist aesthetics and mass performances put on by North Korea’s totalitarian regime.
Zhang Hengli, vice-president of the National Stadium Company that now runs the Bird’s Nest, said: “We want to put on a regular evening show like the opening ceremony. But that will take longer to realise [than other performances in the works for the stadium] because it requires a huge amount of money. We need to find an investor and deal with potential issues of intellectual property of the International Olympic Committee.”
The idea comes as unabated visitor flows have driven the stadium company to abandon original plans for its use following the Olympics and run it instead as a tourist destination only.
Mr Zhang said the company sells 20,000 to 30,000 tickets a day, allowing it to cover Rmb150m ($22m, €16.4m, £14.6m) in annual maintenance and financing costs and even make a profit.
According to travel agents and online polls, the stadium has replaced the Forbidden City as Beijing’s top-ranking attraction for Chinese tourists. Families and tour groups filed through the 80,000-seat venue with looks of pride and wonder on Friday.
Although China’s population of 1.3bn can go a long way in keeping visitor flows up and current revenue levels would allow the stadium to recoup its initial investment of Rmb3.5bn in 10 years, Mr Zhang said that could not be relied on.
“We want to introduce more attractions to ensure stable visitor flows in the long term,” he said.
For political leaders, the purpose of the games had always been twofold: helping the outside world better understand China, which had been opening ever further for 30 years, but also strengthening unity and national feelings within.
A return of the opening ceremony could help. Zhang Gang, a tourist from Henan, said he would come again to see the Zhang Yimou show. “Here, it feels good to be Chinese.”
