Bells Will Be Ringing In Londontown

Led by Big Ben, bells across Britain rang out Friday in a joyous cacophony, their deep bongs and tinkling tones marking the official opening day of the London Olympics. At precisely 8:12 a.m., 12 hours before what is expected to be a spectacular Olympic opening ceremony, the bells heralded a day of celebration that has been years in the making.  Big Ben — the famous bell inside Parliament's clock tower — bonged 40 times over three minutes to ring in the games. It was joined across the country by bells and horns in churches, ships, boats, trucks and cars 12 hours before the symbolic time of 2012 British Summer Time — 8:12 p.m.

It was an exuberant display — a bit too exuberant, in the case ofOlympics Secretary Jeremy Hunt, whose small bell flew off its handle and almost struck a bystander during an event aboard the World War II vessel HMS Beflast.

An apologetic Hunt later posted a Twitter message: "Oops bell broke ... no one hurt but classic #TwentyTwelve moment" — a reference to the BBC's satirical television comedy on the Olympics, "Twenty Twelve," in which everything that can go wrong does.

As crowds began to gather at Olympic Stadium before the ceremony, scores of presidents, prime ministers and princes from around the world attended a reception at Buckingham Palace. Queen Elizabeth II and her family were welcoming a diplomatic who's who, with invitees includingBrazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama.

More than 80 heads of state and government are due to attend the opening extravaganza at the stadium.Friday's bell-ringing project, "All the Bells," was the idea of Turner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed, who once designed a piece of art that consisted of a light being switched on and off.

"Bells are the loudest instruments, and so I thought to do a work in public using bells, trying to make a sort of public piece of music that could be heard everywhere, you know, across the whole city and kind of across the whole country," Creed said.

Creed said the idea was to ring the bells as quickly and loudly as possible. "There's no point in trying to be subtle about it," he said. Olympic organizers say they believe Friday was the first time that Big Ben's 13.5 ton bell, which usually strikes the hour, has been rung outside its regular schedule since 1952, when it tolled 56 times for King George VI's funeral, once for every year of his life.

Hours before the opening ceremony, the Olympic torch was completing its 8,000-mile (12,900-kilometer) journey around the British Isles with a trip Friday down the River Thames on the royal barge Gloriana.

The torch then went into seclusion until its appearance at the opening ceremony to light the Olympic cauldron. The identity of the cauldron-lighter, and the way it will be done, is the ceremony's most closely guarded secret. It will be the climax of director Danny Boyle's extravaganza, which is titled "Isles of Wonder" and features 10,000 volunteer performers.

Billed as a panorama of Britain's past, present and future, the opening ceremony will be seen by 60,000 spectators inside the stadium and a global television audience estimated at 1 billion. It will open with the sound of a 27-ton bell from the 442-year-old Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which also made Big Ben and Philadelphia's Liberty Bell.

Bells Will Be Ringing For London Games Opening Ceremony

With one week to go the opening of the London 2012 Olympic Games, millions of people across the UK are preparing to join in a day of celebrations on Friday the 27 July. The day will commence with bells ringing across the UK at 8.12am for 3 minutes as quickly and loudly as possible as part of the London 2012 Festival commission 'All The Bells' by Turner Prize winning artist Martin Creed.  Thousands of people have already registered and the performance has captured the imagination of organisations including The Royal Navy and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, The British Army, The RAF, the National Trust, The Ancient and Honourable Guild of Town Criers, the National Theatre, the Church of England, the Arts Council and Creative Scotland, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, The National Football Museum, The Sports Heritage Network, Discovering Places, The Churches  Conservation Trust, the Mayor of London, the Archbishop of Westminster, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Open Morris, The British Federation of Youth Marching Band Organisations, The Girl Guides Association, The Royal British Legion, the Women’s Institute and many more.

The event will be broadcast by the BBC to a potential live audience of over 10 million people across the UK on TV, radio and online - including BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 2 Chris Evans Breakfast Show and BBC local radio stations. Anyone can take part by ringing any kind of bell for three minutes - from experienced change ringing experts of tower bells to enthusiastic children with hand bells, bicycle bells and doorbells.

London 2012 has announced that from today subscribers to the latest update of the free official London 2012 Join In App will be able to tap or shake their phone like a hand bell to release the Martin Creed bell sequence. This will allow users to join in with the event whether they are on the way to work or at home. Information about how to get the latest update of the Join In App is available at . To get involved in ‘All The Bells’ all individuals, communities and organizations are encouraged to register at www.allthebells.com and register their interest in taking part on the day, register their own bell-ringing event for others to join, and even download the Martin Creed ringtone for free.

2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony Gets In High Gear

With only 45 days to go before the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, preparations have picked up a pace.  Artistic Director for the Opening Ceremony, Danny Boyle paid tribute to the 10,000 volunteers, cast and crew rehearsing night and day to make the Opening Ceremony a success.

The London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony entitled ‘Isles of Wonder’, inspired by Shakespeare’s play, have already been through 157 cast rehearsals for the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, with volunteer performers giving up their evenings and weekends to take part in 37 rehearsals at the new site in Barking & Dagenham,  where detailed preparations for both the Olympic Opening and Closing ceremonies are taking place.

London-based 3 Mills Studios continues to serve as “production base “ for the London 2012 Ceremonies Team , where the prop store is currently looking to complete the production of 2,956 props and staff in the costume department are working hard to produce 23,000 costumes for all four ceremonies, including sewing 24,570 buttons onto the costumes for one of the opening sequences of the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.

Installation In the Olympic Stadium will begin shortly for ceremonies lighting, which includes 1,100 automated lamps, 1,000 conventional lamps, 500 LED fixtures, and 32 follow spots. This will be accompanied by a million watt sounds system using more than 500 speakers and 50 tons of associated sound gear.

 Workers have now started to install the set for the opening scene of the Ceremony, which is called ‘Green and Pleasant’.  On entry to the Olympic Stadium in East London the audience will see a scene that represents a traditional and idyllic view of the British countryside.   The whole of the field of play in the Stadium will be transformed into the rolling British countryside as the London 2012 Ceremonies Team creates one of the largest sets ever built. The set will be complete with meadows, fields and rivers, and featuring families taking picnics, sport being played on the village green and farmers tilling the soil whilst real farmyard animals graze – including 12 horses, 3 cows, 2 goats, 10 chickens, 10 ducks, 9 geese, 70 sheep, and 3 sheep dogs. Each of the four nations will be represented by their national flower– the rose of England, the thistle of Scotland, the daffodil of Wales and flax from Northern Ireland.

 Danny Boyle, London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony Artistic Director, said:  ‘The Ceremony is an attempt to capture a picture of ourselves as a nation, where we have come from and where we want to be. The best part of telling that story has been working with our 10,000 volunteers. I’ve been astounded by the selfless dedication of the volunteers, they are the purest embodiment of the Olympic spirit and represent the best of who we are as a nation.’

 Seb Coe, LOCOG Chair, said: ‘With only 45 days to go to the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony one of the biggest sets ever built for a show is beginning to develop in the Olympic Stadium. With a worldwide TV audience of a billion people and a cast of over 10,000 talented volunteers, I’m sure that Danny’s ceremony will be a fantastic celebration that will welcome the 10,500 athletes from around the world and make our nation proud.’

 The BBC was today officially announced as the ‘London 2012 Olympic Ceremonies Featured Film Producer’, with the news that it will make two short films for the Olympic Opening Ceremony. With the title ‘Isles of Wonder’, the first film will be at the very opening of the show. The other will appear later. Other than the films, working in partnership with LOCOG, the BBC will also be offering live camera feeds into the ceremony on the night.