How to watch the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony
Boats and cast members rehearse on the River Seine for the Opening Ceremony of Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 24.
(CNN) — Paris 2024 will truly feature an Olympics Opening Ceremony like no other. Here’s everything you need to know about this unique celebration.
How to watch the Opening Ceremony
The Opening Ceremony for the Paris Summer Games will begin at 7:30 p.m. local time (1:30 p.m. ET) on Friday, July 26, as the first boats depart from the Austerlitz bridge.
It will be available to view in the US on NBC and on will also be streaming on Peacock.
A unique festival on the water
For the first time in Summer Games history, it will be held outside of a stadium. Instead, athletes will this year parade down the city’s famous River Seine on boats.
Going east to west through the city, 10,500 athletes on 94 boats will be ferried down a six-kilometer (roughly 3.7 miles) route that ends in front of the famous Trocadéro, opposite the Eiffel Tower, where the rest of the Opening Ceremony shows will take place, such as the lighting of the Olympic cauldron and the official opening speech from French President Emmanuel Macron.
The boats will pass some of Paris’ most iconic landmarks, including the Louvre and Notre-Dame.
Each boat will also have a camera on board so viewers can feel as if they’re amongst the action with their favorite athletes.
The nations with bigger athlete delegations will have their own boats, while those with a smaller number of athletes will share.
There will be 80 big screens up across the city and “strategically placed speakers,” organizers said, to allow as many fans as possible to watch the event.
Fortunately for organizers, hundreds of dancers that were threatening to disrupt the Opening Ceremony over pay have called off strike action after reaching an agreement with Paris 2024, according to their union.
On Monday, some 220 dancers stopped a rehearsal along the banks of the Seine to protest inequalities in pay and housing conditions between the dancers.
A representative for the union previously told CNN that the ceremony was “in danger.”
In total, there will be 400 dancers involved and dancers on every bridge along the route.
French theatre director and actor Thomas Jolly is leading the Opening Ceremony and said earlier this year he wants to showcase all of France’s cultures.
“I was overwhelmed at first. I wondered how I could create a show where everyone can feel represented as part of this great union,” he told AP.
“This responsibility was ambitious, complex, but magnificent for an artist.”
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