Beijing - Just six months after the breathtaking opening of the Beijing Olympics, the Bird’s Nest stadium is looking a lot less glamorous.
The paint is peeling and stains have appeared on its famous lattice design.
Accelerating the deterioration of the iconic National Stadium is the absence of a permanent tenant. It has not hosted a big event since the Paralympics last September and is in real danger of becoming a big white Chinese elephant.
‘It’s such a pity that it has been empty all these months,’ said tourist Gao Qiuling, who was visiting from the northern Tianjin port city, as she toured the venue with her family last Friday.
Visitors like her, paying 50 yuan (S$11) each to enter the stadium, are the only ones warming the Nest these days.
The city’s main football club Guo’an backed out of a deal to make the stadium its home because the rent was too high. That deprived it of an anchor tenant.
So far, only one date has been announced for this year. Puccini’s opera Turandot, directed by Zhang Yimou, will be staged in the Nest on Aug 8.
The event will give Zhang a chance to add an encore to his masterly Olympics opening ceremony exactly a year after he astonished the entire world with it.
With the local media reporting that the stadium’s maintenance fees will run up to 70 million yuan per year, the empty calendar is a serious concern, especially in the midst of the financial meltdown.
‘The Beijing Olympic Games was simply a political show,’ said Dr Xu Guoqi, author of Olympic Dreams: China And The Sports, 1895-2008. ‘The stadiums were designed for political purposes and not really for financial or economic considerations.’
The Bird’s Nest is the showpiece among Beijing’s 31 Olympics venues. Twelve of them were built just for the Games, while 11 were renovated sites and eight were temporary grounds.
Most of the stadiums are situated within universities so that they could be used by students after the Games.
For instance, Singapore’s table tennis silver medal was earned in the Beijing University stadium.
Some temporary grounds, such as the baseball stadium, are being torn down.
The Bird’s Nest though, can suffer, or enjoy, no such fate.
As a symbol of national pride, the stadium takes on greater significance than the others. But the burden could mean it will never recoup the US$450 million (S$679 million) that the Chinese government spent on the architectural marvel.
Suggestions to sell lucrative naming rights to the stadium were rejected. Citic Consortium - a government-owned company which manages the stadium - said that might hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
Citic is aiming for US$30 million in annual revenue but acknowledged recently that is an optimistic target.
But unlike other Olympic cities such as Sydney and Athens which also struggle to support their main stadiums, analysts believe that Beijing has one big advantage over any other city in the world.
‘Because of the rapid growth in domestic tourism and the tremendous interest that Chinese tourists, both domestic and overseas, have in seeing what have been publicised as icons of ‘China’s great national architecture’, this will provide a source of revenue that far exceeds tourist revenue at other Olympic stadiums,’ said Olympics analyst Susan Brownell.
Indeed, some 10,000 tourists a day - mostly Chinese - pay to visit an empty stadium, walking on the field and snapping pictures of vacant seats.
During the recent Chinese New Year break, the number doubled, humbling even the stretch of the Great Wall of China nearest the capital, which registered 17,000 climbers a day.
Last Friday morning, there were so many tourists that security officers blocked some from nearing the ticket counter - temporarily, of course - for fear of overcrowding.
Citic is keen to explore this new strategy. The official Xinhua news agency announced last month that the stadium will be developed with tourism as its main draw.
The area around the Bird’s Nest will be converted into a shopping and entertainment complex in three to five years, reported Xinhua.
It could turn out to be a wise move. French tourist Christopher Lemaire said: ‘It’s a national symbol of China now and I just have to take a look.’
1 comment:
Tourists replace sportsmen in the Bird’s Nest
China’s iconic stadium is losing its glamour fast
By Peh Shing Huei
8 February 2009
Beijing - Just six months after the breathtaking opening of the Beijing Olympics, the Bird’s Nest stadium is looking a lot less glamorous.
The paint is peeling and stains have appeared on its famous lattice design.
Accelerating the deterioration of the iconic National Stadium is the absence of a permanent tenant. It has not hosted a big event since the Paralympics last September and is in real danger of becoming a big white Chinese elephant.
‘It’s such a pity that it has been empty all these months,’ said tourist Gao Qiuling, who was visiting from the northern Tianjin port city, as she toured the venue with her family last Friday.
Visitors like her, paying 50 yuan (S$11) each to enter the stadium, are the only ones warming the Nest these days.
The city’s main football club Guo’an backed out of a deal to make the stadium its home because the rent was too high. That deprived it of an anchor tenant.
So far, only one date has been announced for this year. Puccini’s opera Turandot, directed by Zhang Yimou, will be staged in the Nest on Aug 8.
The event will give Zhang a chance to add an encore to his masterly Olympics opening ceremony exactly a year after he astonished the entire world with it.
With the local media reporting that the stadium’s maintenance fees will run up to 70 million yuan per year, the empty calendar is a serious concern, especially in the midst of the financial meltdown.
‘The Beijing Olympic Games was simply a political show,’ said Dr Xu Guoqi, author of Olympic Dreams: China And The Sports, 1895-2008. ‘The stadiums were designed for political purposes and not really for financial or economic considerations.’
The Bird’s Nest is the showpiece among Beijing’s 31 Olympics venues. Twelve of them were built just for the Games, while 11 were renovated sites and eight were temporary grounds.
Most of the stadiums are situated within universities so that they could be used by students after the Games.
For instance, Singapore’s table tennis silver medal was earned in the Beijing University stadium.
Some temporary grounds, such as the baseball stadium, are being torn down.
The Bird’s Nest though, can suffer, or enjoy, no such fate.
As a symbol of national pride, the stadium takes on greater significance than the others. But the burden could mean it will never recoup the US$450 million (S$679 million) that the Chinese government spent on the architectural marvel.
Suggestions to sell lucrative naming rights to the stadium were rejected. Citic Consortium - a government-owned company which manages the stadium - said that might hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
Citic is aiming for US$30 million in annual revenue but acknowledged recently that is an optimistic target.
But unlike other Olympic cities such as Sydney and Athens which also struggle to support their main stadiums, analysts believe that Beijing has one big advantage over any other city in the world.
‘Because of the rapid growth in domestic tourism and the tremendous interest that Chinese tourists, both domestic and overseas, have in seeing what have been publicised as icons of ‘China’s great national architecture’, this will provide a source of revenue that far exceeds tourist revenue at other Olympic stadiums,’ said Olympics analyst Susan Brownell.
Indeed, some 10,000 tourists a day - mostly Chinese - pay to visit an empty stadium, walking on the field and snapping pictures of vacant seats.
During the recent Chinese New Year break, the number doubled, humbling even the stretch of the Great Wall of China nearest the capital, which registered 17,000 climbers a day.
Last Friday morning, there were so many tourists that security officers blocked some from nearing the ticket counter - temporarily, of course - for fear of overcrowding.
Citic is keen to explore this new strategy. The official Xinhua news agency announced last month that the stadium will be developed with tourism as its main draw.
The area around the Bird’s Nest will be converted into a shopping and entertainment complex in three to five years, reported Xinhua.
It could turn out to be a wise move. French tourist Christopher Lemaire said: ‘It’s a national symbol of China now and I just have to take a look.’
Post a Comment