French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced that there will be 326,000 tickets available for the opening ceremony of the Paris summer Olympic Games on 26 July 2024. Tourists will likely not, however, be able to watch the ceremony taking place along the river Seine, due to the high security concerns surrounding the event.
Organisers had hoped to open the Games with a crowd of two million lining Paris’ most famous waterway, watching the athletes parade past on boats, framed by fireworks. The security is proving to be a nightmare for security services, though, as the ceremony will be effectively taking place through the entire city, rather than in the main stadium as other cities have done in the past.
180 boats containing 10,000 of the world’s top athletes from competing countries will float 6 miles (4 km) down the river, past the newly-renovated Notre Dame cathedral ending up at the Eiffel Tower. Over a million people will be screened by security services in advance of the ceremony, including athletes, journalists, private security guards and local residents.
Darmanin told the Senate that 104,000 spectators will pay for a ticket on the lower bank of the Seine and free tickets will be given away to 222,000 spectators on the higher banks. For anyone visiting Paris, however, and hoping to get their hands on these free tickets, it’s not good news. These tickets, Darmanin said, will be by invitation only, again for security reasons, so they can be vetted by security services before they arrive. They will be members of local sports federations and residents of towns hosting Olympic events that will be selected locally.
Visitors (and residents) can watch the ceremony from one of many fanzones around the city, that are expected to welcome 50,000 people for the opening ceremony alone—many of them likely to be visiting from the U.S.
The digital marketing travel platform, Sojern, reports that flight bookings, as well as searches, by travelers based in the U.S. heading to Paris during the period of the games is up 125% compared to the same travel period last year.
Interestingly, Sojern also reports that bookings by Parisians during the games to other parts of France are up by 49%, compared to the same period in 2023, implying they are looking to leave as the tourists flock in (possibly because some may be renting out their own accommodation during the games). They are heading to Lille, Nice, Corsica, Lyon, and Toulouse.
The news about the Games comes as the same time as Paris unveils its official Olympic Games poster for summer 2024 by French illustrator Ugo Gattoni that Euronews described as a “Where’s Wally frame that’s been commissioned by Jay Gatsby”. It’s a poster intending to highlight the sights of Paris in an open, welcoming way that is causing a ripple across the country because there is no French flag flying, the Eiffel tower is pink and the cross is missing off the top off the Domes des Invalides (where Napoleon’s tomb is housed).
The summer Olympic Games will be held in Paris, France from 26 July to 11 August 2024. The Paralympics start 28 August and runs until 8 September.