Paris 2024 Olympic games ceremony to be held on River Seine

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - The organizing committee for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games on Monday unveiled “Games Wide Open” as the slogan for the upcoming sporting event to be hosted by Paris.

The video announcement of the slogan was accompanied by the visuals of French monuments, history and culture juxtaposed with the different Olympic sports and projecting the theme of inclusion of the disabled, LGBTQI, gender equality, accessibility and pride.

The opening ceremony will be held in the open on the Seine River which runs through Paris. Boats will transport the 10,500 athletes passing by the landmarks, where some of the events will also be held. Organizers claimed it will be the largest opening ceremony with nearly 600,000 spectators expected to turn up for the event, according to the French daily Le Monde.

The organizers said they intend to make the games accessible and provide an opportunity for spectators to witness the games live in Paris and across France. Nearly 13 million tickets will be offered for the sporting events, which will be held from July 26-Sept. 8, 2024. Tickets will range from €24 to €950.

Tickets will be offered through registration by draw. The official launch for registration will be in December 2022 and the first draw will take place at the end of January to the beginning of February 2023. The sale of tickets for the games and opening and closing ceremonies will be in May, while that for the Paralympics will be in September 2023.

The announcement of the slogan and ticketing comes two years before the start of the Olympics. President Emmanuel Macron also held a meeting with the organizing committee to oversee the preparations on the budget and security front.

In view of the UEFA Championship final debacle in Paris, Macron wants to ensure crowd management for the Olympic events without any chaos. Some 17,500 security personnel will be additionally trained to guard the competition site besides army and local police for each day of the event, FranceInfo news reported.