LOS ANGELES 2028: City of Los Angeles beginning its festival site planning for 2028 after Paris’ huge success

La Terrasse des Jeux at the Paris City Hall during the 2024 Olympic Games (TSX photo by Karen Rosen)

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In addition to the work done by the Paris 2024 organizing committee to put on the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the City of Paris undertook a massive effort to try and bring both Games to the 20 arrondissements – districts – of Paris, with each have at least one games festival site.

The City of Los Angeles is beginning this process for 2028. On Friday, a motion by Council members Curren Price (9th District) and Traci Park (11th District) started the effort; the motion included:

“[E]very Angeleno should be given the chance to experience and participate in the spectacle of the 2028 Games.

“Activation Zones are non-venue sites where the public can watch Olympics events together or experience Olympics-related activities. Paris dubbed these ‘Clubs 2024,’ which included sports and cultural activities, live screenings of competitions on big screens, moments for sharing with athletes and with the mascots, and more.

“The 2024 Games offered over 40 such sites within the greater Paris area, and 180 across the whole of France. The most prominent of the sites in the Clubs 2024 program was at Champions Park, where the public could watch the previous day’s medalists parade daily in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.”

The Paris program was divided between the City and the organizing committee. The Champions Park program, essentially a temporary, 13,000-seat stadium set up in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, was run by the organizing committee and featured French and other Olympic medal winners in an environment akin to – but less formal than – the Medals Plaza at the Olympic Winter Games.

In the city, there were specific “Paris fete les Jeux” programs in each of the 20 arrondissements, with massive screens, food, music and sports demonstrations.

In addition, there were two massive public celebration zones in Paris:

● The City of Paris operated the Terrasse de Jeux at the Hotel de Ville (City Hall), with all kinds of demonstrations, music, programs and, of course, big screens.

● The organizing committee arranged for more than a dozen National Olympic Committees to have their national “houses” – the “Nations Park” – at the Parc de la Villette in Paris: Brazil, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Czech Republic, India, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa and Ukraine.

The Club France was also there and massively attended, for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. A special “Decathlon Playground” was also available, with sport demonstrations, food, sponsor displays and – of course – big screens, plus an Olympic collector’s fair.

The L.A. City Council wants to get in on the action and the motion adds:

“Hosting the 2028 Games provides the City an opportunity to include the whole of Los Angeles in the Olympic experience. Activation Zones located throughout the City, in every Council District, would break down the barriers to Games access imposed by venue location and ticket expense concerns and give every Angeleno a chance to witness live Olympic events in a communal environment.”

The motion itself asks that the City Council to:

“[R]equest the Mayor’s Office, and instruct the City Administrative Officer and Chief Legislative Analyst, in coordination with LA28, to collaborate with Council District offices to identify City-owned sites within their respective Council Districts that could be converted into Activation Zones for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games and other major events prior; and identify funding sources, public and private, that could support Activation Zones throughout the City.”

The motion was assigned to the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, of which Park is the current Chair, so expect a highly favorable review and a speedy referral to the City Council.

Observed: This at the same time a good, forward-looking start to getting the City ready for 2028 and the seeds of disaster, as seen in Atlanta in 1996.

One of the important, impressive achievements of the Paris 2024 effort was the close rapport of the organizing committee, which is principally concerned with the athletes, officials, media and fans who attend the Games and the City of Paris and the Ile-de-France region, which was concerned with the area residents first as well as Olympic and Paralympic visitors.

Close – really close – cooperation will be necessary to assure that one side knows what the other is doing (and not doing), and that relations do not become strained, as they did in 1996. There, the relationship between the city government and the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) became strained as the Games got closer, and the City eventually allowed for open spaces to be used by anyone who wanted to put up some tents and get a license to sell some food and/or souvenirs (licensed and unlicensed).

All manner of small “fairs” popped up in and around Atlanta, with many ambush marketing sites where non-Olympic sponsors were vying for visitor attention, implicitly allowed thanks to little or no oversight from the municipal government, which provided the site licenses.

The Los Angeles City Council has the opportunity to follow the exceptional lead of Paris, but must also be wary of the dark side if their efforts are not properly planned, programmed and managed.

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