GLASGOW will spend £14 million on the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in the largest events of their kind ever staged in the city.
An estimated one billion people worldwide will watch the ceremonies and, despite the sum lavished on the event, organisers insist it is modest compared to spending at Manchester 2002 and Melbourne 2006.
Manchester's bill for its opening ceremony alone was £12m a decade ago, while both of Melbourne's events cost roughly double what Glasgow is planning.
The opening ceremony will be staged at Celtic Park on July 23 in front of 60,000 spectators, including the Queen, and will involve a "Parade of Nations" and "an epic end" to the Queen's baton relay, the equivalent of the Olympic Torch relay.
The closing ceremony 11 days later will take place at Hampden Park, when the flag is handed to Australia's Gold Coast, which will host the Games in 2018.
The 2014 Organising Committee will now launch a global search for the creative team to deliver both events, although outwith the budget there is nothing by way of detail as to what the ceremonies might involve.
Earlier this month it was revealed the Scots TV guru behind hit dramas including Bad Girls and Waterloo Road will oversee the ceremonies and the event's cultural programme.
Last night, Eileen Gallagher said: "This is our chance to deliver both an outstanding live experience and a global show-reel which allows Glasgow and Scotland to shine."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article