Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games - What's Involved

What was Involved

“You’re going to represent all of your schools, all of your friends, all of your communities, everything about the whole length and breadth of Scotland.”
Gavin Hastings, OBE, addressing cast members at Orientation Day

The people delivering the Flag Handover Ceremony

Culture and Sport Glasgow, now known as Glasgow Life, had been engaged to project manage the development and delivery of the Flag Handover Ceremony and had established a Flag Handover Project Team of professionals with expertise in arts, events and production. The team provided overall project management, logistical, production and administrative support.

 Getting there

In total, the performers spent 3 days and 4 nights in Delhi and flew out from Glasgow and Edinburgh over the 11th and 12th of October. Cast members not from Glasgow, or within commuting distance of it, stayed in hotel accommodation in the city, the evening of the 10th.

What happens on the day

For cast members, the day began with preparation work in the hotel, makeup touch-ups and costumes fittings, before the team then making their way to the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium for 10am. It was a long wait inside the stadium until the ceremony began at 8pm that evening. Around October time, the weather in Delhi tends to vary between 28 and 34 degrees, with very little prospect of rain, so it was extremely hot.

Performers were 'bussed' from the hotel to the venue and looked after by fleet of flag handover team chaperons or surrogate “mums”. Selected cast members blogged about their experiences throughout their time in Delhi.

Prior to the closing ceremony, competition had been taking place on the field of play for the whole day and so there was only a very small window of time in which the technical team could remove the sporting equipment and set up all the necessary props for the Closing Ceremony, including the additional changes required for the Flag Handover Ceremony.

After the end of the Flag Handover Ceremony, members of the Games Family, Glasgow Lord Provost, Bill Winter, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, members of the OC and select Delhi Government Ministers celebrated the Games coming to Glasgow.