The opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics took place on 26 July 2024 across Paris, beginning at 19:30 CEST (17:30 UTC). As mandated by the Olympic Charter, the proceedings included an artistic program showcasing the culture of the host country and city, the parade of athletes and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron. The Games were formally opened by the president of France, Emmanuel Macron. The ceremony marked the 130th anniversary of the International Olympic Committee, the centenary of the 1924 Summer and Winter Olympics in France, and the 235th anniversary of the French Revolution.
Directed by Thomas Jolly, the opening ceremony was held outside of a stadium for the first time in modern Olympic history. Athletes were paraded by boat along the Seine to a temporary venue at the Jardins du Trocadéro, where the official protocols took place. The parade was interspersed with the artistic programme, which was divided into twelve acts reflecting the culture of France and its history, and took place at Paris landmarks such as Notre-Dame, Conciergerie, Musée d'Orsay, and the Eiffel Tower. The ceremony featured musical performances by French musicians such as Gojira, Aya Nakamura, Philippe Katerine, and Juliette Armanet, and international musicians Lady Gaga and Céline Dion.
The ceremony received mixed reviews, with many praising its artistic segments, musical performances, and grand finale, but criticizing the length of the ceremony and other production issues brought about by the format. The ceremony's use of camp elements received a mixed reception. A segment said to be celebrating diversity, and featuring drag, was criticized by Christian and conservative organizations and figures for allegedly referencing The Last Supper, which some critics interpreted as mocking Christianity, though Jolly denied that this was the intent.
In December 2024, the Olympic Channel released a full length documentary about the creation and development of the opening ceremony, called La Grande Seine. In February 2025, the presentation of "Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)" by Gojira, Marina Viotti and Victor Le Masne at the opening ceremony received the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.https://www.olympics.com/en/video/french-metal-band-gojira-wins-grammy-for-performance-during-paris-2024-opening-ceremony
Preparations Logistics preparations were expected to be finalized by the end of 2023, with certain rehearsals occurring in some secret venues without public presence before the event. In some specific situations, they were carried out on-site, and were considered "teasers" by Thierry Reboul, executive director for the Games. The first camera test shots were done in September 2023 and coverage of the event was expected to be provided by 130 cameras placed in strategic positions. The event was broadcast live to 80 giant screens along the route of the Seine. Directed and created by theatre and television actor and director Thomas Jolly, it was the first opening ceremony held outside of an Olympic stadium since the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics held in Buenos Aires. The choreography was created by .
In the first phase of planning, the Games' Organizing Committee originally expected attendance to be upwards of 500,000 non-paying people and an additional 100,000 paying spectators on the lower quays of the river, for an expected total of 600,000. Although the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics held in Gangwon were the first to have a ticket-holding audience following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, this was the first time in the senior Olympics since the 2018 Winter Olympics to allow international spectators, after the 2022 Winter Olympics opening ceremony having a reduced number of local spectators. However, after a suggestion in May 2023 by Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the French Minister for Sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, that this be limited to between 300,000 and 400,000 free of charge, and after additional concerns of security and logistics, the figure was reduced to a maximum of 300,000 in November 2023. In late December 2023, a further reduction was proposed, as security services would have preferred the ceremony in a stadium to facilitate implementing security measures. The stands stretched from the François Mitterrand Library to the Eiffel Tower.
The public lined the banks of the Seine, sitting on a stretch on the upper and lower quays as well of rivers that cross each side of the river. The organizing team counted between 6,000 and 8,000 volunteers and workers. The ceremony directors had originally projected 2,000 dancers, but this was lowered to 400 dancers in a total of 3,000 performers. All personnel involved in water, air and land performances in total numbered 45,000, with an average of per . This figure does not include the roughly 2,000 security agents required to monitor the entry tents of paid ticketholders and law enforcement located on the elevated docks throughout the course. The cast and athletes started their travel on the river from the Pont d'Austerlitz to the Pont d'Iena, in front of the Eiffel Tower and the Jardins du Trocadéro, where the main protocol was held. The closest the general public could get to the athletes and parade on the Seine were on docked parties and the restaurant boats.
In May 2023, the first series of tickets for the event went on sale via ballot for the first time, with prices ranging from €90 to €2,700, with the latter being the most expensive tickets overall for the Games.
In early 2022, the city government announced that due to security concerns, the riverside book stalls could be removed, leading to legal disputes until 13 February 2024, when the French President Emmanuel Macron shelved the plan.
The total number of boats and barges was near 160, with around 58 taking part in a reduced rehearsal carried out in July 2023, carrying athlete delegations, television crews and emergency services. 7,000 of the 10,500 athletes were expected to take part. 6,800 actually ended up participating. In April 2023, 116 vessels from 42 river companies had been committed, with an expected 98% of all boats to be used being based in the Paris Metropolitan Area and the rest from regional boat companies, including local sponsor Highfield Boats. Some boats that carried some delegations are Bateaux Mouches that routinely sail the Seine.
In February 2024, it was announced the number of spectators to attend the opening ceremony would be reduced from the proposed 600,000 spectators to around 300,000. There were 100,000 paid tickets for the ceremony, with around 200,000 free tickets. The next month an exact amount of 326,000 tickets was stated, with 104,000 paid tickets for the lowest bank and 222,000 free tickets for the higher banks. The free tickets were distributed in three rounds and aimed at families with low incomes living in underprivileged areas, sports movements, schools, volunteers and local workers including traders. As originally proposed, no free tickets were given to group of tourists.
The general rehearsal of the ceremony, which was scheduled for 24 June 2024, was postponed due to a strong flow in the Seine River. It was rescheduled for 16 July 2024.
Thierry Reboul, COJOP 2024 Director of Ceremonies, claimed that the inspiration for the event came in 2019 when he was walking along the river; the original plans were to hold the ceremony at the Stade de France. But COJOP2024 head Tony Estanguet wished from the start to "throw away the rule book". Parisian mayor Anne Hidalgo assembled a committee to develop the creative aspects of the ceremony before COJOP2024 hired a creative director. The committee's chair, Patrick Boucheron, would eventually be one of the four individuals hired by Jolly to develop the script. Even before being chosen to plan the ceremony, Jolly had "dreamed of delegations arriving by hot air balloon, a French invention, and of the heads of dead kings rising from the Seine to watch the ceremony", yet this idea was not implemented. Jolly and four scriptwriters planned the ceremony. They wore puffer jackets while going out on boats along the river from the Austerlitz Bridge to the Eiffel Tower. After these excursions, they spent nine months writing the ceremony script. They took inspiration from the history of Paris, and its main themes consisted of love and "shared humanity".
After determining 12 important scenes of French history to represent, Jolly hired four subdirectors to develop the sounds, costumes and choreography of the event. Daphné Bürki and Olivier Bériot were in charge of costumes while was entrusted the choreography and dance, with Victor Le Masne chosen as the musical director. Certain elements and sequences were not able to be implemented such as having performers lean out of the Hôtel-Dieu, Paris decommissioned hospital building due to asbestos. Other plans that did not go through included a performance that would take place near a fish hatchery by the Béthune Quay on the bank of the Seine, which was not to be disturbed, a mass of dancers on a bridge that would have caused its collapse, and an undisclosed scene that had been reworked 73 times by May 2024. In total, 3,000 performers took part, with at least 400 of these being professional dancers.
Since the water level would rise or fall depending on the weather, the organizers developed "an artificial intelligence software to cast the route in 3-D so [Jolly] could visualize high and low water levels, rain, even storms".
One year after the Games in July 2025, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the opening ceremony costed approximately $108 million (€91.7 million); a similar cost estimate to that of the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing.
Safety measures In October 2023, following security concerns caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Gaza war and the Arras school stabbing, both the French government and the Paris Organising Committee for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (COJOP2024) stated there were no official plans to relocate, stating that "Plan A takes into account all of the threats". Oudéa-Castréa stated on BFM TV that they were paying attention to context and the government had been working on "adjustment variables", wishing to maintain the original format. In December 2023, President Macron stated that there were multiple scenarios for the ceremony, in case of a major security event which would force it to move from the Seine. On this, COJOP2024 stated they had "contingency plans for all identified risk scenarios: heatwaves, cyberattacks, and the ceremony is no exception". In April 2024 President Macron announced that in case of a terrorism threat, there was a plan B, and even plan C; in that case the opening ceremony would be moved to the Trocadero or to the Stade de France stadium. Nevertheless, Christophe Dubi, the IOC Games executive director, stated the previous in March that a change to the Stade de France would be unlikely due to the event being "too big, too sophisticated, too complex artistically to look at a Plan B in another location".