To herald the first day of the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games on Friday 27 July, Big Ben and thousands of bells across the UK will ring out for Work No. 1197: All the bells in a country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes, Turner Prize-winning artist and musician Martin Creed’s commission for the London 2012 Festival.
Big Ben, the hour bell of the Palace of Westminster, will chime more than 40 times from 8:12AM – 8:15AM to ring in the Olympic Games. This is a historic occasion for one of the world’s most famous bells, as it is believed to be the first time that the strike of Big Ben has been rung outside its regular schedule since 15 February 1952, when it tolled every minute for 56 strokes from 9:30AM for the funeral of King George VI. The ringing will be attended by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Rt. Hon John Bercow MP; Lord Tony Hall, Chair of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Board; and bell ringers from other organisations.
The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow MP, said: “It is a sign of how special this summer is when one of the world’s most famous bells will ring outside its regular schedule so it can be part of this London 2012 Festival commission to ring in the Olympic Games. I am delighted we can play our part in this Martin Creed artwork. This is primarily a work for every community within the UK to embrace as their own but it is also important for our famous landmarks to be represented when the eyes of the world will be on us.”
It has also been confirmed that the National Assembly for Wales will be ringing its bell along with Stormont and the Scottish Parliament. All four Parliaments will be ringing in unison at 8:12AM on 27 July as part of All The Bells in celebration of the first day of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Anyone can take part by ringing any kind of bell for three minutes on Friday. To get involved, all individuals, organisations and communities are encouraged to register online at www.allthebells.com. The website also makes available for download Martin Creed’s free and exclusive ringtone, Work No. 1372, which features 28 different bells sounds. Subscribers to the free official London 2012 Join In App will also be able to tap or shake their phone like a hand bell to release the Martin Creed bell sequence. This will allow users to join in with the event whether they are on the way to work or at home.
All The Bells will be the London 2012 Festival’s biggest community celebration for the Games and thousands of people and organisations have already registered to take part, including the Royal Navy, all four UK Parliaments, HMS Belfast, British Embassies worldwide, the Mayor of London, the Archbishop of Westminster, Dame Evelyn Glennie, The Girl Guides Association, the RAF, the British Army and the famous Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Bells will be ringing everywhere from Britain's northernmost inhabited house in Skaw, the Shetland Isles, to the UK’s most westerly church in Tresco, The Scilly Isles. Enthusiasm has even spread as far as a British Antarctic Survey research station in Rothera, Antarctica, where a research team will be making as much noise as possible to join the Olympic celebrations.
Ruth Mackenzie, Director of London 2012 Festival and the Cultural Olympiad, said: "All the Bells is London 2012 Festival's biggest community project, and we are incredibly excited that the commission allows everyone in the UK the chance to be part of history in the making as we aim to set a world record for the largest number of bells to be rung simultaneously."
The London 2012 Festival features more than 25,000 artists from all 204 competing Olympic nations. Everyone is able to join in the celebration this summer with over 10 million free tickets and opportunities to take part in 12,000 events and performances at 900 venues all over the UK, including 130 world premieres and 85 UK premieres. Highlights of events taking place across the UK this week include:
London 2012 Festival events taking place in the opening week of the London 2012 Olympic Games
Work No. 1197: All the bells in a country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes aims to set a world record for the largest number of bells to be rung simultaneously. From enthusiastic children with hand bells, bicycle bells and doorbells to experienced change ringing experts of tower bells and church bells, all individuals, communities and organisations are encouraged to register and join in on this historical moment at www.allthebells.com. The event will be broadcast by the BBC to a potential live audience of over 10 million people across the UK on TV, radio and online.
Tino Sehgal – The Turbine Hall Commission – Anglo-German artist Tino Sehgal undertakes the annual commission for Tate’s Turbine Hall, producing its first live commission, involving movement and conversational interactions with visitors. In this free exhibition, opening on 24 July, gallery-goers engage with Sehgal’s characters directly, creating social situations through the use of conversation, dance, sound and movement, as well as philosophical and economic debate (Free, 24 July – 28 October 2012).
The Olympic Journey: The Story of the Games exhibition tells the Olympic story through the endeavours of ancient and modern Olympians. Visitors will be taken on a journey from ancient Greece, the original home of the Olympic Games, through the vision of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the man behind the revival of the Games many centuries later. The experience will continue with the stories of some of the iconic Olympic athletes including Steve Redgrave, Cathy Freeman, Kelly Holmes, and Jesse Owens. Staged at the Royal Opera House for the duration of the Olympic Games, it will include unique artefacts, animation, film and audio from The Olympic Museum in Lausanne being shown in London for the first time (Free, 28 July – 12 August 2012).
BBC Proms 2012, the world’s biggest classical music festival, this year forms part of the London 2012 Festival. The eight-week season of concert and events features the world’s leading artists and orchestras, the largest number of new commissions for a Proms season, record youth participation and a celebration of London and composers and pieces considered to have changed the world, such as Beethoven, Boulez, and Cage. Taking place at the Royal Albert Hall, highlights from the sixth week of the Festival include:
• A series inspired by the theme of Olympic Truce featuring Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an organisation that famously brings together Arab and Israeli players to form 'an orchestra against ignorance'. Barenboim directs his first complete Beethoven symphony cycle in London, culminating with a performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony on the opening day of the Olympics on July 27; the orchestra will also perform significant works by another revolutionary composer, Pierre Boulez, one of the most influential figures in contemporary music of the past 60 years;
• On 24 July, The Kronos Quartet take to the stage offering up an eclectic mix starting with high-octane Syrian folk-pop and ending with a Kronos commission blending classical strings with ethnic Balkan instruments, shouts, foot-stomping, bells and electronic overdubs;
• On 29 July, Oscar-winners Wallace and Gromit make their Proms debut in the world premiere of a new show, with classical favourites for all the family – including music by John Adams, Debussy and Shostakovich, and their brand-new Proms commission, My Concerto in Ee, Lad;
• Also on 29 July, the Aldeburgh World Orchestra brings together conductor Sir Mark Elder and 124 emerging professional musicians from over 30 countries across the globe for their final concert this year.
Swing Symphony (Symphony No. 3), conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, award-winning Chief Conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, receives its UK premiere, performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican. Wynton Marsalis' symphonic meditation on the evolution of swing was first performed in Berlin, and has been commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker in collaboration with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and the Barbican, London, Arts Council England and London 2012 Cultural Olympiad (25 – 26 July 2012).
Danish artist Olafur Eliasson returns to the Tate Modern with his new project Little Sun. Nine years on from his seminal Weather Project in the Turbine Hall, Eliasson is now inviting visitors to view works of art in a wholly different light. Free late night blackout events at the former power station will allow visitors to view the Tate Modern’s Surrealist collection using only the light of Eliasson’s Little Sun lamps (First viewing: 28 July 2012, 10:15 PM– midnight). Little Sun will also feature an exhibition where visitors can learn about solar power, the global energy challenge, light and its importance in and for life. Developed with the engineer Frank Ottesen, Little Sun is a work of art that brings solar-powered light to off-grid areas of the world (Free, 28 July – 23 September 2012).
Playing the Games, a unique celebration of cultural and sporting talent, featuring comedians, musicians, playwrights and Olympians at the Criterion Theatre. Leading performers will interview world-renowned sporting legends and Olympians, with Rick Edwards interviewing Kriss Akabusi, Stephen Fry interviewing Edwin Moses, and Stephen Daldry interviewing Haile Gebrselassie. The programme also includes a series of afternoon plays and evenings with Mark Watson, Alan Davies, Stephen K Amos and a collection of Sporting Stories Before Bedtime. This week’ s programme includes two new plays in response to the presence of the Olympic Games in London: ‘Taking Part’ (3 PM, 29 July 2012) and ‘After the Party’ (5 PM, 29 July 2012); also TV favourite Alan Davies has his first UK stand up appearance in 12 years in a one-off West End gig (7:30PM, 29 July 2012).
Art Drive! BMW Art Car Collection 1975-2010 sees the BMW collection of Art Cars on show for the first time in the UK at a car park in Shoreditch for two weeks free. The collection, initiated over 35 years ago, features BMW cars transformed by some of the world’s leading artists including: David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. The exhibition of cars by 16 international artists is on view at the NCP Car Park on Great Eastern Street (Free, 21 July – 4 August 2012, 12 noon – 9PM).
In Water I’m Weightless: Kaite O’Reilly is a provocative look at the body, performed by a cast of six outstanding deaf and disabled performers. Inspired by the imagination, experiences and attitudes of disabled people across the UK, Kaite O’Reilly’s poetic, poignant, and at times explosively funny texts explore the endless possibilities of human difference. With visual projections by designer Paul Clay and dynamic staging from John E McGrath and movement director Neil Charnock, this radical, athletic production from National Theatre Wales challenges preconceptions of what is ‘normal’. The performance forms part of the London 2012 Festival’s UNLIMITED programme, the largest ever UK programme celebrating arts, culture and sport by disabled and deaf people (26 July – 1 September 2012, National Theatre Company of Wales) To book tickets, please visit: www.nationaltheatrewales.org.
Battle for the Winds is a spectacular free three day outdoor theatrical event in Weymouth and Portland to mark the opening celebrations of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Sailing events, featuring thousands of artists and participants from the South West’s seven counties and beyond. (‘Gathering of the Winds’, Weymouth Beach, 26 & 28 July 2012, 12 – 4PM; ‘Doldrums Lair’, High Angle Battery, Portland, 27 July 2012 – free event but booking essential - www.brownpapertickets.com; performances at Noon, 12:30PM, 1PM, 1:30PM, 2PM).
Summer Schubertiade features the music of Schubert and Kurtág being performed in a series of special Saturday evening chamber recitals across Sussex. In this week’s recital, London 2012 Festival, Brighton Festival and Clifton Montpelier Festival present The Heath Quartet at Charleston Barn, Firle (28 July 2012, 7:30PM, for booking information, please visit www.charleston.org.uk).
Secrets: Hidden London offers the opportunity to discover some of London's amazing hidden gems as leading artists and cultural institutions transform the city's lesser-known landscapes including canals, lidos and parkland, with dance, opera and specially created installations. The Owl and The Pussycat, a free water-bound operatic spectacle featuring the words of ex-Monty Python Terry Jones and a specially commissioned score from Oscar-winning composer Anne Dudley, will be performed in Little Venice (Free, 25 July 2012, 2:30PM, 6:30PM) and Graham Street Gardens, Shoreditch (Free, 29 July 2012, 3PM and 6PM- Booking needed, please visit www.roh.org.uk) The four giant, man-made conical hills at Northala Fields in Northolt will be transformed for Northala by environmental artists Red Earth, who are weaving a variety of natural wooden sculptures and installations into the natural landscape (Free, 25 July – 9 September 2012).
Works inspired by Olympic and Paralympic values
As well as the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra participation at BBC Proms 2012 and The Olympic Journey: The Story of the Games at the Royal Opera House, additional highlights inspired by Olympic and Paralympic values in the sixth week of London 2012 Festival include:
The World in London, a major public art project initiated by The Photographers’ Gallery brings together 204 specially commissioned photographic portraits of 204 Londoners, each originating from one of the nations competing at the Games. Leading national and international artists including Stephen Shore, Martin Parr, Mary McCartney and Rankin, alongside emerging names, have been commissioned by The Photographers’ Gallery to photograph the sitters over the last two years. The 204 portraits will be exhibited as large-scale posters in Victoria Park in East London, and in the Ramillies Street pedestrian zone opposite The Photographers’ Gallery in Soho (Free, 25 July 2012 - 12 August 2012)
Art in the Park – a series of inspiring artworks have been installed in and around the Olympic Park, commissioned by the Olympic Delivery Authority. Artworks include: Fast, Faster, Fastest, Jason Bruges Studio’s exciting new interactive light project installed on one of the Stadium bridges; Info Spectrum- internationally renowned artist Carsten Nicolai’s colourful representation of five Olympic Rings as a dramatic, oscillating sound wave, using the colour spectrum of a sunset; and RUN, artist Monica Bonvicini’s flagship artwork for the Copper Box (27 Jul 2012 - 9 Sep 2012). Also in the Olympic Park is Orbit, by acclaimed British artist Anish Kapoor, which was realised with the support of ArcelorMittal and the Mayor of London. Standing at 115 metres, Orbit is the tallest art structure in Britain, offering stunning views over the Olympic Stadium, Olympic Park and the whole of London.
BBC Films and Film 4 and London 2012 Festival film commissions feature four short films specially created by great UK filmmaking talent. The films will be screened nationwide this week: A Running Jump by legendary director Mike Leigh reflects on sport in everyday life (BBC Two: 26 July, 11:20PM); WHAT IF starring Noel Clarke and directed by Max and Dania follows a young teen as he learns life lessons to a backdrop of urban art and sports (BBC Two: 24 July, 11:20 PM; Channel 4: 30 July, 11:40PM); Swimmer by Lynne Ramsay follows a lone swimmer through the waterways and landscape of Britain (BBC Two: 24 July, 11:45PM; Channel 4: 30 July, 11:40PM; Channel 4: 6 August, 11:40PM) ; and The Odyssey sees BAFTA-award winning film-maker Asif Kapadia returning to his Hackney roots (BBC Two: 25 July, 11:20PM).
Sacred Truce Project: Ripple Effect - Ursula Rani Sarma and Ambassador Theatre Group present a new play exploring the theme of truce. Communities, youth and school groups from wide and varied backgrounds have been working with local directors, headed up by Kully Thiarai, to create five segments responding to the theme of Olympic truce. Each segment, standing as a piece of theatre in its own right, will come together to be performed in a West End Gala Performance (25 July 2012 - Richmond Theatre, London).
London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Posters have been created by twelve leading contemporary artists, with screen prints and lithographs of the works displayed free at Tate Britain. The official posters for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are by Fiona Banner, Michael Craig-Martin, Martin Creed, Tracey Emin, Anthea Hamilton, Howard Hodgkin, Gary Hume, Sarah Morris, Chris Ofili, Bridget Riley, Bob and Roberta Smith and Rachel Whiteread (Free, 21 June – 23 September 2012).
London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic medals exhibition at the British Museum tells the story of the production of the medals for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, from the mining of the metal by Rio Tinto through the creation of the designs and production by the Royal Mint. The display includes objects from the 19th-century Shropshire games alongside medals from the 1908 and 1948 Olympic Games held in London, and the 1960 and 1984 Paralympic Games (Free, 8 February – 9 September 2012).
BT Road to 2012, a three-year project and the National Portrait Gallery’s largest commission, reaches its conclusion with the opening of the final exhibition in the cycle, BT Road to 2012: Aiming High. Forty new portraits of some of the key players in London 2012, including Lord Sebastian Coe, Mark Cavendish, Fran Halsall and Danny Boyle, by photographers Anderson & Low, Jillian Edelstein and Nadav Kander, are on show (Free, 19 July – 23 September 2012).
UNLIMITED, involving deaf and disabled artists, is the UK’s largest programme of its kind, with 29 commissions. It encourages collaborations and partnerships between disability arts organisations, disabled and deaf artists, producers, and mainstream organisations. As well as Kaite O’Reilly’s production In Water I’m Weightless, highlights from the programme this week include: Lawnmowers: Boomba Down the Tyne, which brings together the spirit of the English Blaydon Races with the Brazilian Boi Bumba in a large-scale performance celebrating both cultures. Music and dance from Brazil will be woven into a free theatrical show performed by artists from the North East of Brazil and the North East of England (Free, Gateshead International Stadium, 26 July 2012); and Ramesh Meyyappan’s Skewered Snails, a darkly comic tale of a dysfunctional family: an authoritarian father and a mother whose tenderness manifests itself in fascinating and disturbing ways towards her children, who are twin siblings – a boy and a barbaric girl (Platform, Glasgow, 26 – 27 July 2012). For booking information visit www.platform-online.co.uk
Rio Occupation London sees 30 Rio artists occupy the streets, stages and squares of London during the 2012 Olympic Games for an exuberant 30-day residency of art, music, dance, theatre, film and poetry. Working across the city and collaborating with London-based counterparts, the artists will create performances in both traditional art spaces and more unusual settings around the capital. This week, the 30 artists occupy the V&A Museum for one night only with a series of installations, performances, workshops and games for Friday Late: Going for Gold (Free, 27 July 2012); graphic artist Breno Pineschi and costume and set design artists Eric Fuly and Robson Rozza will also have an open studio at the V&A as part of their residency (Free, 1PM, 25 July 2012), The Brazilian Kitchen serves up a heady mix of food, drink and dance at Battersea Arts Centre (25 July 2012); The Albany hosts Emanuel Aragao’s Day by Night, a ‘performance within a party’ (26 July 2012); and Christiane Jatahy and Gringo Cardia join in conversation with Paul Heritage to discuss the trends and topics in contemporary Rio culture at Battersea Arts Centre (26 July 2012).
Additional highlights taking place on the sixth week of the London 2012 Festival:
The Tanks: Art in Action sees a new specially commissioned installation by Korean artist Sung Hwan Kim and a star line up of artists and performers for the fifteen-week series celebrating performance, film and installation to mark the opening of The Tanks at Tate Modern. The programme this week includes a new work by Ei Arakawa, talented Japanese artist together with German artist Jutta Koether. Slide shows of works by artists Silke Otto-Knapp and Florian Pumhösl will be projected on to the walls of the Tank, alongside a large scale reproduction of Jutta Koether’s painting La Femme, to provide a theatrical backdrop for the week’s series of collaborative performances and actions (Free, 24 July - 29 July 2012).
Sacrilege is Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller’s life-size inflatable replica of Stonehenge, a free interactive outdoor installation and fully operational bouncy castle for adults and children alike (until 9 September 2012). Locations this week include King Edward VII Park, (25 July 2012); Paddington Recreation Ground (28 July 2012); Cheam Park (29 July 2012).
Showtime (21 July – 9 September 2012) is London’s largest ever, free outdoor arts festival, presented by the Mayor of London. Running for seven weeks, Showtime aims to bring the magic of hosting the Games to every corner of the capital, and will feature a mixture of the best street arts, including circus, carnival, theatre, dance, music and opera all presented by artists from the UK and abroad. The 30 acts selected include the Bureau of Silly Ideas with their amazing street theatre and stunts, gladiators wrestling 4 million volts of electricity, a hip hop bungee dance show about love, a female percussion group last seen at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, and a large-scale Bollywood dance troupe with floating angels suspended by cranes. This week: Paddington Recreation Ground, 12PM (24 July 2012); Edward VII Park, 12PM (25 July 2012); Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre, 12PM(29 July 2012); Exhibition Road, 12PM (30 July 2012) www.molpresents.com/showtime
NEST, led by composer Brian Irvine and writer, director and film-maker John McIlduff is a celebration of the people of Northern Ireland, and the largest public art commission ever undertaken in the Northern Ireland. This participatory project is an art installation made from thousands of donated objects; an archive of photos, labels, stories and films. The large-scale installation is on display at the T13 warehouse in the heart of the Titanic Quarter in Belfast (Free, until 29 July 2012,12-8PM).
World Shakespeare Festival continues to celebrate the global appeal of William Shakespeare. Highlights for the sixth week of the London 2012 Festival include:
• Much Ado About Nothing sees Shakespeare’s classic comedy reworked in an Indian Setting Courtyard staring actress, comedienne, writer and singer, Meera Syal playing the role of Beatrice, presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon with previews running this week (26 July – 15 September 2012).
• Shakespeare: Staging the World – the BP Exhibition, a major exhibition at the British Museum on the world and works of William Shakespeare, providing an insight into the emerging role of London as a world city four hundred years ago interpreted through the perspective of Shakespeare’s plays (19 July – 25 November 2012).
• Timon of Athens, Shakespeare’s strange fable of conspicuous consumption, debt and ruin directed by Nicholas Hytner with Simon Russell Beale in the title role, at the National Theatre (10 July – 31 October 2012).
Frieze Projects East features a series of new contemporary art commissions in East London’s public spaces across six Host Boroughs for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games: Barking & Dagenham, Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest. The artists who are taking part in Frieze Projects East are: Can Altay, Sarnath Banerjee, Anthea Hamilton & Nicholas Byrne, Gary Webb and Klaus Weber, as well as Ruth Ewan, the recipient of the CREATE art award. (Free, 18 July – 26 August 2012).
Tales of the Riverbank Comedy Barge - Pleasance Ahoy! continues its voyage along the UK’s canals northwards offering a barrel of laughs along the way with a stop at Lammar’s Restaurant and Bar in Manchester, where Justin Moorhouse heads a bill of top comedic talent. Tickets are free, but booking is essential, please visit: http://www.pleasance.co.uk/ (Free, 26 July 2012)
You Me Bum Bum Train, the cult participatory show, returns with a new incarnation presented in Stratford town centre in the heart of the Olympic Host Borough. In an exhilarating and participatory adventure, the sole audience member becomes a passenger who journeys through a maze of live scenes. You Me Bum Bum Train is a continuously evolving work, first shown in 2004, and has been created by award-winning artists Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd. You Me Bum Bum Train is co-commissioned by the Barbican and CREATE and presented in association with Theatre Royal Stratford East (19 July – 19 September 2012).
Africa Utopia is a month-long festival of music, theatre, film, literature, dance, fashion, talks and debates at the Southbank Centre presented in conjunction with the renowned Senegalese singer and human rights campaigner Baaba Maal. An invited group of young delegates – guided by ‘elders’ including Baaba Maal, Ben Okri, Lemn Sissay and Wole Soyinka – engages with leading African arts organisations and cultural leaders to explore how art projects can be mobilised to bring about social change. Highlights this week include Angelique Kidjo at Queen Elizabeth Hall (26 Jul 2012); Joe Driscoll & Sekou Kouyate at Central Bar Foyer (27 Jul 2012) and Baaba Maal and Friends at the Royal Festival Hall (28 July 2012).
Alan Ayckbourn Double Bill: Absurd Person Singular and Surprises – World premiere production of Ayckbourn’s 76th play, Surprises, programmed alongside a revival of his 1972 play, Absurd Person Singular (Scarborough, 8 June –13 October 2012; Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 8 August – 8 September 2012). Coinciding with the Double Bill is the production of Ayckbourn’s fantasy adventure The Boy Who Fell Into a Book at Soho Theatre, London (18 July – 29 July 2012).
Everyone will be able to join in the celebration with over 10 million free opportunities to take part in 12,000 events and performances at 900 venues all over the UK, including 130 world premieres and 85 UK premieres.
All the London 2012 Festival events can be found at www.london2012.com/festival. Follow us on twitter @London2012Fest http://twitter.com/london2012fest and find us on Facebook www.facebook.com/London2012Festival.
Find out more about the London 2012 Festival
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The London 2012 Festival is the finale of the Cultural Olympiad. Since the Cultural Olympiad started in 2008 over 18 million people all over the UK have already participated in or attended over 9,000 performances and more than 8,000 workshops as part of Cultural Olympiad programmes inspired by London 2012 and funded by our principal funders and sponsors.
Principal Funders of the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival are Arts Council England, Legacy Trust UK and the Olympic Lottery Distributor. BP and BT are Premier Partners of the Cultural Olympiad and the London 2012 Festival.
Supporters of the London 2012 Festival are BMW, Eurostar, Freshfields, King’s College London, Panasonic, Samsung, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Wales, BBC, British Council, Creative Scotland, DCAL, DCMS, Festivals Edinburgh, Mayor Of London, Northern Ireland Tourist Board, Visit Britain and Visit Scotland.
Notes to Editors:
For more information on the London 2012 Festival:
London 2012 Festival Press Office
Telephone: +44 (0)203 2012 021
Email: press@london2012festival.org
Find out the latest from London 2012 HQ on our blog http://www.london2012.com/blog , follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/london2012 or download the Official London 2012 Join In app.
The Official London 2012 Join In app is a free mobile guide to help you plan, enjoy and share your Games experience. From the Olympic Torch Relay to the Olympics and Paralympics, the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, plus all the cultural, city and community celebrations happening across the UK, the Official London 2012 Join In App is your essential companion. It is available now at app stores and at http://www.london2012.com/mobileapps/
London 2012 Festival Press Office
Open daily: 20 June – 9 September 2012
In addition to the continuing media centre at LOCOG’s Canary Wharf offices, throughout the twelve weeks of the London 2012 Festival, there is a fully staffed London 2012 Festival Press Office conveniently located at King’s College on the Strand, serving journalists based in London or visiting from the rest of the UK and overseas.
The London 2012 Festival Press Office provides a welcoming central London location for media, with a programme of regular briefings, interview opportunities, with space to work and free Wifi. The Press Office is staffed with a specialist team of cultural press officers, who act as a single point of contact for all London 2012 Festival-related media enquiries.
Office location: King’s College London, Strand Campus, Strand, London WC2R 2LS
Office hours: 10AM – 7PM daily (20 June – 9 September)
Closest Underground Stations: Temple, Holborn, Charing Cross
Telephone: +44 (0)203 2012 021
Email: press@london2012festival.org
London 2012 Games partners:
The Worldwide Olympic Partners who support the London 2012 Olympic Games and the National Olympic Committees around the world are Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos, Dow, GE, McDonald’s, Omega, Panasonic, Procter and Gamble, Samsung and Visa.
LOCOG has seven domestic Tier One Partners - adidas, BMW, BP, British Airways, BT, EDF and Lloyds TSB. There are seven domestic Tier Two Supporters – Adecco, ArcelorMittal, Cadbury, Cisco, Deloitte, Thomas Cook and UPS. There are now twenty-eight domestic Tier Three Suppliers and Providers – Aggreko, Airwave, Atkins, Boston Consulting Group, CBS Outdoor, Crystal CG, Eurostar, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, G4S, GSK, Gymnova, Heathrow Airport, Heineken UK, Holiday Inn, John Lewis, McCann Worldgroup, Mondo, NATURE VALLEY, Next, Nielsen, Populous, Rapiscan Systems, Rio Tinto, Technogym, Thames Water, Ticketmaster, Trebor and Westfield.
There is one domestic Tier One Paralympic Games-only Partner, Sainsbury’s and two domestic Tier Three Paralympic Games-only Suppliers, Otto Bock and Panasonic. The London 2012 Paralympic Games also acknowledges the support of the National Lottery.
