Paris 2024 Floats New Approach For Opening Ceremony Stadium

The Paris 2024 opening ceremony will feature the river Seine as the stadium floor and the stadium seats turn into over 600,000 spots along the shore. Paris 2024 floats a new approach to the opening ceremony, all part of an approach to hosting the summer Olympics, starting July 2024.

The parade opening Paris 2024 moves outside a traditional stadium setting and will feature over 150 boats floating athletes along nearly four miles of the river Seine through downtown Pairs. With a key viewing area opposite the Eiffel Tower and the route including up to 10 bridges, organizers expect more than 600,000 spectators to attend the event, which will include 80 videoboards and a mixture of paid and free seating along the riverbank.

The east-to-west float will depart from the Austerlitz bridge, beside the Jardin des Plantes, and pass around two islands. To make way for the athletes, a mixture of tourist companies will offer up their river boats for the procession. Sodexo Live!, which owns and operates Bateaux Parisiens, the largest provider of boat tours on the Seine in downtown Paris, will employ 22 boats, including the largest vessels in the procession.

“We are meeting with the IOC every week,” Arnaud Daniel, Sodexo director general for activities on the Seine says about the intricate logistics involved with staging an opening ceremony along a river.

For the first time in the history of the Summer Olympics, the opening ceremony moves outside a conventional stadium, turning part of Paris into the venue watched by the world. Each national delegation will board a boat equipped with cameras to allow television and online viewers to watch the festivities on the vessels. The more than 10,500 athletes will all travel the waterway, ending in front of the Trocadero, where the remaining elements of the ceremony will occur.

“Holding a ceremony open to a very large audience, with no admission fee for most of its spectators, is a major first,” organizers say. Spectators will not need tickets to access the upper shore. Spectators on the lower shore will need to purchase tickets. “The opening ceremony for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics will be the largest ever held in the history of the games,” organizers say. “It will be open to all.”

With the Seine’s boats a key feature throughout the event, Sodexo and its sports-focused arm, Sodexo Live!, will both be at full throttle during the Olympics. Along with the boating needs during the opening ceremony and the rental of the boats by companies during the games, Sodexo operates all concessions associated with the Eiffel Tower, Stade de France, Roland Garros, the 14 temporary sporting venues and all the dining at the athletes’ village.

“We were very adamant we wanted to be a part of the Olympics,” Selima Ayoub, global strategy for Sodexo Live!, tells me. “We are a French company. We needed to be part of it.”

The focus of the dining at the athletes’ village will be on healthy, comforting and diverse selections. “It must be the right dish for the right athlete,” Ayoub says.

With roughly 40,000 meals served daily to the 14,500 athletes and staff, village dining remains open around the clock and the expected offerings must serve every need for every culture. The IOC brief has a set requirement for mandatory items, but also allows Sodexo Live! to plan out plenty of French-inspired options.

“The object is to have diversity all day long,” Ayoub says. “Each athlete knows what they need to eat. We need to have everything they need available at all times of the day. You can bring French gastronomy and the flavor of the country.” While athletes won’t be changing up their diet during competition, Ayoub expects athletes to want to try a mix of French cuisine once their competition ends.

The team is working with a group of Michelin-starred partner chefs, such as Akrame Benallal, Amandine Chaignot and Alexandre Mazzia, for the village

To serve the athletes and the competition venues, Sodexo Live! has been working on French-based procurement since signing the contract with the IOC in October 2021. And that includes buying up entire fields full of produce and product. Sodexo Live! anticipates having 80% of all food products to come from France, including all meat, dairy and eggs. Some items, such as bananas—a popular choice during an Olympics—will be organic or fair trade-certified when not able to be sourced from France.

From boats to villages, the feeding of the fans and the athletes for Paris 2024 covers an array of needs. With a focus on out-of-the-stadium ceremonies and temporary venue sites, Sodexo Live! must remain nimble to meet the needs of the newfangled way of operating an Olympics.