#Olympicsponsorship and #OpeningCeremony Tweetchat tonight at 7:30 p.m. EST: going global

Are you as excited as I for tonight's Olympic Games Opening Ceremony? Judging from the chatter on the Twitter world, you're not alone!

Just a reminder about the TweetChat and blog-in I'm hosting tonight, beginning at 7:30 EST when the television coverage begins. I hope you'll join in. I've heard from friends, colleagues, and clients in Baja, Mexico, London, China, and of course throughout the US that they may be tweeting and commenting and participating in the conversation, too. Welcome to all; invite your friends and followers!

Here are the details and some insider scoop I found out about the Opening Ceremony.

How to participate:

First, feel free to post comments to various blog entries of mine right here at SponsorshipStrategist.com. Anyone can post; I'll approve posts as fast as I receive them.

If you have a Twitter account, feel free to follow me @GailBower, and when you post, use the hashtag #Olympicsponsorship so we aggregate all our chats in a search. To make things easier, you can also post and stay abreast of the TweetChat at these two locations:

http://tweetchat.com/room/Olympicsponsorship or http://wthashtag.com/Olympicsponsorship

These two sites make it easy to post with the hashtag in the conversation box.

You may also want to add other hashtags – #Olympics, #Van2010, #Vancouver2010 (though I think people were moving over to the shorter #Van2010), #OpeningCeremony, and/or #sponsorship – to contribute to the bigger conversation.

Continue to post your thoughts and observations about the sponsorship ties, the events, the Opening Ceremony, the athletes through the entire Winter Games, through February 28.

Insider scoop:

Thanks to my friend Andi Coyle, and her friend Deb, who has an AP photographer friend assigned to the Olympics, I got some great tips on viewing the Opening Ceremony tonight:

• A pre-ceremony show begins at 8:30 p.m. EST, before the actual Opening Ceremony at 9 EST.
• She describes the first 17 minutes of the Opening Ceremony as "TERRIFIC" and says you "DO NOT WANT TO MISS IT." (Her caps, not mine.)
• The athletes begin to march in 25 minutes into it, led by Greece, as is tradition; proceeding in alphabetical order, with the US athletes at about 45 minutes in; and Canada, as the host country, is saved for last.
• She says there's lot of cool "pagantry," the flag arrival, something with Mounties, followed by the torch. She says: "They are keeping the torch lighting a mystery, but we know they will start something inside the stadium, but the big torch is outside the stadium on a stand near the water.  We’ll see what they do."
  

The most important question: where will you watch/post? Do you have some Olympic dinner plans? Let the Games begin!

Comments

[Bethbrodovsky]

Gail,

This is a great post. There is so much to love about the Olympics and they make a great backdrop for a discussion on sponsorship, fundraising and marketing. Looking forward to the discussion.

[Gail Bower]

Thanks, Beth, and I'm looking forward to your thoughts and observations. Thanks for all your Twitter suggestions, too!