Blame it on Rio...

It's that time. On Friday, August 5, we begin the summer games of the 31st Olympiad. Rio de Janeiro will be the host and there's going to be trouble. I've worked on large scale events in Rio and many of its problems are insurmountable.

This will mark my 14th Olympiad, Summer and Winter, and I've seen the games from every angle, inside and out, top to bottom.  I've worked with the local organizing committees, the International Olympic Committee, local governments, sponsors and the athletes themselves.

No event has a longer history than the Olympics. They began more than seven centuries BC. The modern games got their start in 1896. Olympiad is the Greek word for the four year period between games. That's what makes this the 31st Olympiad.

Now that the brief history lesson is over, why is there going to be trouble in Rio? The main reason is that there is always trouble in Rio. Crime and violence pervade the city. The beaches and Carnival drown out the realities of what goes on in the city day in and day out.

One of our round-the-world sailing events had a stopover in Rio and we barely escaped with our lives. Boats were burned. Goods were stolen. Men were attacked and women were physically abused. The only response we could get from local law enforcement was that they were sorry and they would watch our compound more closely.

These problems were not politically motivated or terrorism related. They were purely uncontrolled lawbreaking delinquency. Jane has vowed she will never return.  She was frightened just to be on the streets. All of us stayed very close to "home".

Today, when you add in the political unrest going on with the ouster of the president coupled with the worldwide fear of terrorist activity and the Zika virus, it is very hard to believe that we will make it through the games without incident.

Jane and I spent time at the Beijing Olympics with the delegation from Rio who were there for planning meetings.  We shared with them our concerns about their city hosting the games.and their response was that the crime problems were not going to go away. Their only hope was that the athletes and the competition could be isolated with extreme security measures being taken wherever the games touched the city.

It's sad to me to think that the athletes from around the world will be penned up and led by security officials everywhere they go. Security for spectators will be no less scrutinized. The Sochi Olympics were controlled in a similar fashion but there was a war going on. Even the ever-present social unrest in China was less of a concern than what's about to happen in Brasil.

The Olympics began as a people's event among friendly countries. But increasingly, it's politics, warring factions and money that dictate the outcome of the games, instead of the competition on the field. My role will again be to help local organizers with sponsorship, international media relations and crisis communications.

Rio is a beautiful city and the vast majority of its citizens are welcoming to visitors. However, television may well be our first and safest avenue for watching the events. I hope for the best at the 31st Olympiad. But I am prepared for the worst.  Here's hoping.

Geebies take over...

It’s always been called Team GB in the past, according to our friends.  But this time, with the Games in London, Team GB was everywhere.  And its numbers grew as the Games went on. Quickly we turned Team GB into the “Geebies” and we watched them everywhere we went.

Geebie merchandise was plentiful and you could buy a Union Jack flag, the unofficial Geebie cape, on any street corner for a couple of pounds.  The Geebies were frenetic and I don’t know how many times I heard that they only won one medal in Atlanta.  Now was their time.

It's clear that the big winners at the Olympics were London and the Geebies. With them relishing the moment and having so much fun, how could the rest of us avoid having a wonderful time.  It was exhilarating and enchanting.

Pomp and circumstance went out the window with the opening ceremonies.  If nothing else, having 70 sheep on the floor was a first. And I would be surprised if just a few Americans knew that there were 4 British Isles and could name them (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).  The Geebies were bringing their world to us on a silver, er, should I say, golden platter.

You know the results now and the Geebies made an amazing 3^rd place finish with 65 medals, including 29 Golds. In the midst of a long economic depression (I’ll call it that, because it feels like it), here was a brief shining moment. And appropriately, it came from the land of Camelot.

All this euphoria overcomes the worries, quibbles, criticisms and problems that surfaced during the weeks leading up to the opening, including a threatened strike by border control staff which was called off at the last minute.

Recorded warnings from Mayor Johnson start playing on the underground, urging people to stay away. Increases in traffic congestion are predicted and then the private security staff fiasco forces the officials to bring in the military. By the time the Games opened, there were nearly twice as many servicemen and women on Olympic duty as there are in Afghanistan.

So how could we quell all this angst and start the Games on a high note?  Two words. Mitt Romney. “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out,” he tells an interviewer. And then, he questions the likelihood that the people of the UK will “come together and celebrate the Olympic moment.”

Viola! British pride swells. Mayor Johnson speaks to an audience of 60,000 at a pre-Olympic concert in Hyde Park and says, “There’s a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we’re ready. Are we ready?” To thunderous applause and rapturous cries of “Yes, we are!” the Mayor’s popularity shoots up like a rocket and, in spite of any concerns, it’s Game On.

The meetings I had were a breeze.  The crises we were prepared to control did not happen.  The Geebies made it a walk in a very lovely park and Jane and I had some fun.  We spent time with good friends, had a wonderful meal in the shadow of the Tower Bridge and watched some sports that we don’t normally see, most of which the Geebies won.

Rebecca was sitting across from me on the tube with her credential on.  It read “OCC Performer”. After a couple of bad guesses, I found out that OCC stood for Olympic Closing Ceremonies.  Rebecca was coming from Reading (pron. Redding) for a rehearsal.  She was one of the dancers in yellow, which is sort of like me telling you to watch for us on the telly. I’ll have the blue shirt on. But we studied every shot looking for her.

She had been making the trip in for weeks to a warehouse near the Park to practice.  She was excited and somewhat humbled by being selected. Between the opening and closing ceremonies, 15,000 performers had been chosen to participate. “I’m only 22,” she said. “How am I ever going to top this.” Rebecca is another of the reasons that this experience warmed my heart.

The Closing Ceremonies cost $30 million and, like all the other performers, Rebecca was paid 1 pound as a token. Tickets ranged from 20 pounds to 1500 pounds. Overall, 9.8 million people (mostly Geebies) visited venues across the UK. 600,000 pieces of luggage were handled at Heathrow Airport. The most requested service by the athletes (men and women) in the Village was nail painting. And Usain Bolt has given us all one new move to finally replace John Travolta’s Saturday Night Fever pose.

London 2012 was a glorious event, start to finish. I’m proud to have had a very small role. My 10^th Olympiad is one to remember...with a pretty nice photo for the Christmas card, as well. I try not to look too far into the future and there’s more to Rio than meets the eye, based on our previous experience there with sailing races. But completely coincidentally, I have a good friend from the sailing days who lives in Sochi, so who knows. 2014 could be next? It’s been a blast sharing our experience with those of you who have chosen to follow along.  Most of you know me well enough to rest assured whatever comes next will be fun, exciting and completely unexpected. GO GEEBIES!

Big Doin's

Spending my summers on the farm growing up while my dad was moving every year in the Army, I learned a lot from my grandmother.  One of her favorite terms was “Big Doin’s”.  Whenever she saw a gathering with lots of cars and people around, she would say “There’s Big Doin’s over there.”  The family joke that my dad and uncle always told was when she made that exclamation one time and they drove a mile to get closer to the cluster of cars which turned out to be a junkyard with “no doin’s” at all.

Well, there is going to be “Big Doin’s” in Seattle this summer, thanks mostly to the “Big Doin’s” in the summer of 1962 when the Space Needle and the Seattle World’s Fair opened.  Earlier this week, we brought out three generations of World’s Fair and Space Needle Seattleites to begin painting the Needle back to its original “Galaxy Gold” color from the Fair. It got everyone in town excited about all the activities coming up, starting with the official 50th Anniversary this weekend on April 21.
From now until the end of year, we’ve got a series of openings, events and activities that qualify as “Big Doin’s” and we’re knee-deep in all of them.  I’m outlining all this commotion mostly to let you know we’ll be distracted from time to time.
Space Needle’s 50th Anniversary—it coincides with the 1962 World’s Fair celebration, which means a lot to Seattle.  That really marks the time when Seattle became a world city and has grown ever since.  Elvis even came to the Fair and made a movie about it.  The Needle has become an icon for our city around the world and a beacon to our future.  It’s always leading the way.

University of Washington, Professional and Continuing Education Centennial comes next.  It’s nestled inside of the University’s 150th Anniversary and it celebrates the tens of thousands of local citizens who have come to the University with life-long learning as their goal.  We’re instituting a way for graduates to continue their education for years to come. And bring all who have participated over the years together in a series of reunions and gatherings.

Space Race 2012—the brain-storming session that spawned this idea started by talking about the success of sending Visitor Number 45 Million to our sister landmark, the Eiffel Tower.  Because of the success of that promotion, we began to discuss other places we could send people and someone said “How about sending them into space?”  We all looked at each other and asked “Could we really do that?”  The answer was yes and, since then, we have gone from 50,000 online entries to 1000 invitations to send a video about why you would want to go into space, to 20 semi-finalists who were voted for online and now it’s down to 5 people from around the country who will compete in tests of skill to determine the ultimate winner.  Astronaut Buzz Aldrin will open the envelope in May to congratulate the winner.

Not slowing down a bit, King Tut hits town on his final stop ever in the US next.  He’s going back to Egypt to his permanent home and will not ever tour again.  I still have the program from his first visit to Seattle over 30 years ago.  The real significance of that is that it tells me there is entirely too much “stuff” in my basement.  Being the marketing member of the board at the Pacific Science Center, host for the visit, makes this exceptionally sweet.  Advance ticket sales and exposure for his visit are way ahead of any previous venues.  The city is even changing the name of King Street Station to King Tut Street station during the 6 months of the visit.  Exciting!

Then comes Chihuly Garden and Glass—this spectacular exhibition has been almost 3 years in the making.  When a space became available next to the Space Needle, its owners approached renowned artist Dale Chihuly with the idea of a major exhibition of his work there.  We faced the test of Seattle’s process, gained permission from the city and have been working 24/7 since August to open in May.  It is all coming together in an amazing way and the artwork is being installed as I write this.  The most comprehensive exhibition of his work will move Seattle’s position in the world of art up a significant number of notches and those of us involved will be very proud to help open its doors to everyone.
Never far from the mountains, at the same time, we’re working on a PBS documentary about the love and attraction of the mountains.  We’re using the life of famed mountaineer and consummate guide, Lou Whittaker, whose career has spanned over 60 years, as the foundation for this program.  Lou is highly respected and revered in outdoor circles and he is a close and valued friend.  This documentary for network placement next winter or spring pays appropriate homage to Lou and his influence on climbing and guiding around the world.
All this is just in time to connect with the XXX Olympiad in London.  We’ve worked on the last several games with the local organizing committees including Beijing and Vancouver, BC.  We continue to talk with our Olympic contacts and have several lines in the water that we hope will bring us onto the scene in London.  Right now, our talks have been focused on security, which is a very delicate subject as we get closer to the Games.
All these “Big Doin’s” play out through the end of 2012.  What a benchmark year for this city.  If there weren’t an important election coming up in the fall, people would be dancing in the streets already.  It’s going to be incredible though and we’re smack dab in the middle of it all.  Grandma couldn’t have said it better.  There are “Big Doin’s” here and we’re in the game. In case you’re wondering what we’re up to…now you know.