The Rio Olympics are upon us! After many setbacks and worries about the country’s deep economic crisis, the condition of the lodging for the athletes, and the zika virus, Brazil is getting it together for the famous opening ceremony, set to take place at the iconic Maracana Stadium on Friday, August 5, 2016 at 8pm local time, which would be 7pm eastern time. The Maracana Stadium has been used in the past for soccer finals including the 1950 World Cup final, 2013 Confederations Cup final and 2014 World Cup final. The venue can hold more than 75,000 people.
Three billion people around the world are expected to tune in on Friday, to what’s expected to be an unforgettable night of Brazilian music and dance. Over 6,000 volunteers choreographed by renowned Deborah Colker will dance in the opening ceremony as well as dancers from 12 samba schools in Rio. They have been rehearsing since May at a secret location near the stadium. Besides the dancers, Brazil’s famous singers Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso will be just some of the performers to take the stage in what’s expected to be an unforgettable night.
"I hope that the opening ceremony will be a drug for depression in Brazil. Brazilians can look at it and say, 'We are a cool people, we are different ethnic groups, we live together, we never went to war, we are peaceful, we know how to enjoy life and we tend to be happy,'" said Fernando Meirelles, one of the three creative directors for the ceremony, according to CNN. His name might be familiar because he’s filmmaker behind the Oscar-nominated movie "City of God," an account of life in Rio de Janeiro's favelas.
Another celebrity definitely attending the festivities is Gisele Bündchen, who will play the part of the famous “girl from Ipanema,” while Brazilian model Lea T will become the first transgender person to have a major role at an Olympic opening ceremony. However, there’s still a secret celebrity who is supposed to light the Olympic cauldron, but the organizers have kept a tight lid on that. Soccer king Pelé had told Brazilian media that he was asked to do it, but at the time he hadn’t accepted the invitation.
To watch the magnificent event in the USA, you can tune into NBC or watch it on the NBC platform online. However, the network will be transmitting the ceremony with a delay of an hour on TV as well as online to make it primetime. However, there are options for users who want to watch the ceremony with the rest of the world: using a VPN, or a virtual private network to access sites like the CBC and BBC One which will be broadcasting live but are based in Canada and the UK respectively and are “geoblocked.”
According to Quartz, using a VPN to circumvent geoblocking exists in a legal gray area, it’s not itself illegal, but it may violate a network’s terms of use, and some broadcasters have argued it also violates copyright laws. Having said that, there are many VPN services available that are very easy to use like TotalVPN and ExpressVPN.
You will need to sign up for an account, download the app to the device you plan to watch on, open the app and connect to a server in the United Kingdom if you want to watch BBC’s stream. If you want to watch CBC’s stream, connect to a Canadian server. Or connect to a server in the country of your choice and watch that country’s network that might be streaming the ceremony. Go to the stream and enjoy the show!
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