Sydney Olympic Games mastermind warns against penny-pinching
More than two decades after Sydney staged what is still considered one of the greatest Olympic Games ever, one of the people responsible for its most memorable moments has issued a warning to Brisbane.
David Atkins, the driving force behind the Sydney 2000 Olympic ceremonies and a presence at major global events from Vancouver to the Middle East, said the biggest danger facing the city’s Olympic plans was not overspending, but the siphoning off of ambition before construction even began.
“Don’t pinch your money at this stage. You’ll have to pinch your money eventually anyway, but don’t do it now,” he said.
“There will be times when cost savings need to be made, and that’s where you need to pull out the knife, but don’t start killing ideas at the beginning.”
Atkins, founder of international events and ceremonies firm DAE Global, said creatives needed to be involved in the design process of the planned Brisbane Stadium at Victoria Park before any shovels entered the ground.
He said that at Sydney 2000, when the stadium at Homebush was being designed, organizers had concepts for the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies in mind.
“There was an understanding of certain requirements that could be creatively built into the stadium as part of its infrastructure to allow the things that have become iconic to happen – renovating it would either not be possible or would be incredibly expensive,” he said.
As an example, Atkins points to the moment Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic flame as a waterfall descended from the north stand.
“The reason we were able to do this was because when the stadium was being built, water from the roof was funneled into tanks under the stands,” he said.
“There were questions about that expense at the time, but it was literally half the cost as part of the ceremony budget.”
Of course, even with the best long-term planning, things tended not to go exactly as planned. Atkins, along with billions of people around the world, watched in horror as the Sydney Olympic cauldron froze on its journey to its perch above the stadium.
“It was a heart-stopping moment; I remember literally being on my knees in the control room when it happened,” he said.
“[Stage director] Richard Wherrett and I probably ran this part 50 times during final rehearsals. We were there until the early hours of the morning almost every night, running it up and down, up and down, up and down, and never had this problem.
“And it happened tonight. It was pretty scary.”
The technical glitch caused by a faulty limit switch caused the flame to remain suspended in the air and almost made unwanted history.
“We are very close to being one of the few countries that puts out the fire rather than fueling it,” Atkins said.
He said the boiler had a gas cylinder on top with enough gas for eight minutes, making the estimated journey time only three minutes.
“But of course we didn’t plan for it to not move at all for 3.5 minutes,” he said. “So as the flame gets higher, if you’re watching closely, you can see it drop further as it starts to run out of gas.”
It was something Atkins can now laugh about, but he said it showed how important risk mitigation is for an Olympic-scale event.
By 2032, Atkins said, there was only one requirement for the Olympic ceremonies: the “Brisbane heartbeat”.
“There are some unique things, not just in Brisbane but in Queensland. There’s also an approach that’s unique to Queensland,” he said.
“All of these things need to be factored into the process, and I think there are a lot of opportunities to take advantage of these and bring them to life culturally.”
He said so far Brisbane was moving in the right direction.
“When we look at other aspects [the stadium]”For example, like a museum, it’s really critical to make sure it has a life beyond an athletics stadium,” he said.
“There is always resistance to spending extra money – and they are expensive – but over time I don’t think anyone will do that, especially the state government and certainly not anyone who funds it. [Sydney 2000] When he looks back he says ‘you know what, we shouldn’t have done that’.
