The opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic watched by 32.2 million people in United States alone that was bigger than the American Idol this years season. The Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony on Sunday will have more or less 7,000 participants and none of the 15,000 people who were in the opening ceremony will be in the finale.
Chinese Students will be involved during the Olympics Closing Ceremony and this finale deserves to be praised B/c the show will be Directed by Zhang Yimou who also directed the opening ceremony. Celebrities are expected, like Michael Phelps, David Beckham and a performance by singer Leona Lewis with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. Well, we hope there will be no bogus this time!
Olympic closing ceremonies usually offer less of a spectacle than opening nights, and the Beijing finale will have less than half the participants but thats still about 7,000 people.
NBC Sports executive David Neal said Thursday he traveled 90 minutes west of Beijing to see a rehearsal of the ceremony conducted in secret on a college campus. Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, who directed the opening ceremony, does the same for the Sundays finale, set to air via tape delay at 7 p.m. EDT on NBC.
Its just unlike any other closing ceremony Ive ever seen, said Neal, executive vice president of NBC Olympics. Usually a simple vehicle for extinguishing the Olympic flame and setting the stage for the next games, this years ceremony will have a great deal of entertainment, he said.
The opening ceremony was seen by 34.2 million people in the United States, a bigger audience than this years American Idol finale. NBC will air the ceremony taped rather than live . The same thing happened with the opening ceremony and NBC was concerned when some highlights got out over the Internet before they were broadcast on the network. But, if anything, it whetted the appetite of people who later watched on TV.