Tokyo Olympics official shave announced a new creative team responsible for redesigning the opening and closing ceremonies at the Olympic Games which is to be held next year. The new creative team will be headed by Hiroshi Sasaki. He was one of seven directors previously responsible for the opening and closing events.
Sasaki is a former advertising executive with Japan’s powerful public relations and advertising agency Dentsu, Inc. He replaces Mansai Nomura as the new head of the creative team. Nomura is a well-known film actor and a traditional Japanese comedic theater. He was in charge of the ceremonies when the Olympics were postponed in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an online press conference Sasaki said, “Our team was now running on a tight schedule to revamp plans for simplified ceremonies. The conditions are fairly tough but at this stage, honestly, progress isn’t being made yet. We must redo the planning from scratch. Rather than flashy, extravagant ceremonies, we now have a chance to change the content of the ceremonies”.
The Games were originally scheduled to start this summer but it got postponed by a year because of the pandemic. Since then, the organizers and government officials have been looking at ways to cut costs. Still, there has been lingering doubt about the viability of holding a large-scale, global event as the pandemic continues to rage.
Although the ceremony planners were short on details, Sasaki said he pictured the ceremonies as an opportunity to show the world a message of “breakthrough or hope” during the pandemic. A few days earlier, the organizers said they would spend $900 million on measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus at next year’s Games.