You’d be surprised how profoundly disturbing it can be for an evening of contemporary dance to be punctuated by a water leak resulting in loud rhythmic drips from above creating a glistening damp patch on the edge of the stage. Surely this can’t be happening. The puddle is fast becoming a pool and the dancers won’t be able to avoid it for long.
Worse still this is a premier – we’re almost an hour into the very first night of Birmingham’s prestigious International Dance Festival. The city has invested significantly to build on its already strong reputation in dance. Heading towards...
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It’s not just sporting venues being constructed within the Olympic Park - the Olympic Village will be built just beside it - a key development on the Park. With accommodation and facilities for over 17,000 athletes and officials during the Olympic Games, and over 8,000 during the Paralympic Games, the Olympic Village will enhance their experience of London 2012.
1) From this view taken in November 2007 you can see progress taking place on the area that will link the Olympic Village and VeloPark during the Games…:
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I am very excited by the fact that Open Rehearsal will be one of the core projects in London for the launch weekend of the Cultural Olympiad on 26th - 28th September. Open Rehearsal is a pan-London project that aims to engage audiences with culture by offering them a whole range of 'behind the scenes' activities. Over these three days, arts venues all over city will open their doors for a packed programme of rehearsals, backstage tours, workshops, master classes, talks and debates.
Because Open Rehearsal aims to open doors, engage audiences, encourage participation and learning as well as promote London’s phenomenal cultural...
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Before joining London 2012 I had two linked careers, one as an arts manager and one as a practitioner - I DJ and used to manage bands. As you can imagine I've had some great experiences travelling from gig to gig, festival to festival. Playing Trafalgar Square with a huge Creative Routes ensemble- an organisation that puts on events by mental health service users. This was fantastic, performing a song with the repeated refrain '**** psychiatry', which debates alternative approaches to mental health. As you can see I have a strong passion for disability and the arts.
As a Disability Cultural Associate I...
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So it is 118 days until we become the Host City for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. As Director of the Cultural Olympiad launch, what this means to me is that from the weekend of 26-28 September, people right across the whole of the UK can begin to see how they can be part of 'everyone's Games'.
London 2012 is more than four weeks of sport and the four-year Cultural Olympiad is just one way of clearly showing this. As Pierre de Coubertin said ‘The Olympics is the wedding of sport and art’. So after we have watched the world’s best...
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I have been working on the Olympic Park for over a year as Assistant Supervisor for Enabling works on Construction Zones 1 and 2. For the uninitiated, come Games-time, Zone 1 will accommodate the Aquatics Centre and Zone 2 will be the main gateway to the Olympic Stadium. Enabling works is a catch-all term for demolition, remediation (cleaning the soil to get rid of contamination) and general site clearance, as well as some not insignificant structures and utility work.
My role involves working for the Project Management team out on site, in close contact with the contractor carrying out the works on my...
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On Monday (21 April) London 2012 hosted a briefing for East of England MPs, aimed at informing them about the widespread benefits the London 2012 Games looks set to bring to their region.
After a mad rush from Westminster to St James’ Park station to pick up some important documents for the reception, looking like someone who has just run the London Marathon, I got back to the room sweaty and flustered. Quickly I moved to find the biggest glass going and polish off nearly all soft drink supplies made available for the event.
Still trying to fully regain my breath, the...
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'Do you want to come to the Great Wall tomorrow?', Andida, (the Dutch Synchronised Swimming judge) asked me as I lugged my suitcase into the hotel. Why not I thought, it’s the only day free of meetings and/or competitions, so I should make the most of it. Little did I know that Andida and her partner were actually planning a 10k between the two villages of Jinshanling and Simitao. As I climbed, yes climbed, the steepest parts, all I was worried about was whether I really could make it to the end.
But I...
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During the London 2012 Games, about 80 per cent of spectators will get to the Olympic Park through the three 'gateway' stations - Stratford Regional, Stratford International and West Ham.
As Planning Manager for Stations, my job is to make sure that West Ham - just one mile from the southern entry point to the Olympic Park - can accommodate the huge volume of London 2012 spectators.
Of all the spectators travelling by rail, about 20 per cent will use West Ham to get to the Olympic Park. How does this translate in numbers? Well, around 400 spectators every two minutes will arrive at West...
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A sunny St George's Day in Wembley and I am welcoming George and Tommy, two gentlemen who have passed a plant operative course at the National College of Construction for East London. I invited them after seeing their excellent performance on dump trucks at the College. We have lots of demand for dump truck operatives at the moment as the London 2012 project continues to move thousands of tonnes of soil every day. It gives us the chance to target local people and give them the opportunity to work on the Olympic Park.
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23 April 2008
We couldn’t believe it when London 2012 contacted us to tell us that our band, We Were Heroes, had won the London 2012 Get Set London Talent competition. It was honestly one of the happiest days of our lives and this opportunity means so much to us. There are five members in the band, all of us from London, and it’s pretty much a dream of ours to one day be a successful band. Being given this chance means everything.
We first heard about the London 2012 Get Set London Roadshow talent contest when we were watching the ITV London...
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Last week I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit a school in Waltham Forest to join in with a model making workshop. It was part of a series of workshops that had been taking place to help spice up the hoardings (boards marking the perimeter of the Olympic Park) that are going up along Hackney Wick.
Me in the pink top with pupils and Zoe from the ODA External Relations team:
The workshop was based around making models of the Olympic Stadium and Aquatics Centre in a workshop with 'Signs of Life' - a Tower Hamlets social enterprise organisation.
It...
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During the Games, thousands of spectators will use Stratford Regional Station every day to get to the sporting action at the Olympic Park. As part of the Stratford team, I am pleased to report that our work to boost capacity and accessibility at the station for the Games and beyond is progressing well.
Over Christmas, we demolished buildings on platforms 10a and 11 to get ready for the construction of new structures, such as stairs and lifts, which will lead to a disused subway that we are going to re-open.
Before demolition of the old station entrance and canopy:
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My time here has been great! I’ve gained so much from this experience. I have worked in different departments everyday and I enjoyed them all.
The first day was the day I was kind of nervous but then there was a kind lady Sevcan from HR who took me through all the steps. I had to fill in a form and I was asked to fill in what I would like to achieve from doing this work experience. I didn’t know who I was going to work with and how old they were going to be...
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In this week's peek at the Olympic Park, the images show what we’ve been doing to widen the Waterworks River. Water is a central feature of the Park. The Waterworks River, adjacent to the Aquatics Centre, is currently undergoing extensive regeneration.
1) This photo was taken last summer before any piling work began. Time was not on the side of the old blue metal railing and the dilapidated concrete walls were originally built in the 1930s:
2) With the old blue railings in the foreground of this image and the piling beyond, you can see how the Waterworks River will be widened by...
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Jo, BT employee, 18 April 2008
I never win anything, so you can imagine my delight when I received the e-mail stating “Congratulations, you have won.” Me and a number of colleagues were given the opportunity to tour the London 2012 Olympic Park site. As an employee of BT, the Official Communications Services Partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, I was excited to see the extent of things to come.
I had no idea about the amount of work the construction teams have ahead of them – and just how much has been done so far. The soil washing, the archaeological finds, the decontamination,...
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Last week Manchester MEN Arena hosted the 9th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) 2008. Two temporary swimming pools (competition and warm-up) transformed the MEN Arena into a competition venue with 800 of the world’s best swimmers from more than 130 countries competing.
As a seasoned volunteer and passionate sports fan I knew this was an opportunity not to be missed so I submitted my application to volunteer at the Championships and waited with baited breath. I was delighted when my successful application was confirmed. Arriving the night before the start of...
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In just over 100 days, Beijing will welcome the world to the 2008 Olympic Games. However, the biggest show on earth actually begins a month earlier (8 June) when the broadcast and press centres open and then the athletes begin setting up home in the Village.
This is a city that is well prepared and you can't help but be impressed with the state of readiness, the enthusiasm and pride with which the Organising Committee ('BOCOG') and their teams are applying the final touches.
Together with the ODA we have had an unprecedented look behind the...
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I am the Director for Infrastructure and Utilities for the Olympic Delivery Authority, who are responsible for developing and building the new venues for the London 2012 Games and their use afterwards. I am in Beijing on a fact finding trip. It has proved to be enormously useful. This week there have been a number of test events held in the venues and the Beijing 2008 Organising Committee (BOCOG) have gone out of their way to give us 'access all areas' so we can learn as much as possible.
I have been focussing particularly on what it means to be venue...
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Orient Way is a multi-million pound railway siding project that we need to deliver to a tight deadline, while maintaining the highest safety standards. Railway sidings are a series of tracks used to ‘park’ trains that only run during the morning and evening peak. Once these trains arrive at a facility like Orient Way, they are cleaned, restocked and made ready for evening peak travellers.
So what is my job all about? Is it going around telling all and sundry to put their hard hat on? No, not at all! Put simply, my job is to make sure that site...
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