The 2025 Chengdu World Games began on Thursday night by staging its opening ceremony not in a conventional stadium, but in an expansive urban space featuring a massive eaves gallery, a large lake and lakeside greenery, organizers said.
Huang Peiling, deputy chief director of the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies, said Monday that the Tianfu Eaves — a prominent architectural feature of the Tianfu International Convention Center in southern Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province — will serve as a key backdrop.
The open space in front of it, along with a lake covering about 200,000 square meters and surrounding greenery, will jointly form a unique open-air stage.
The Tianfu Eaves, a 430-meter-long wooden gallery at the convention center’s front hall, is said to be the largest single wooden structure of its kind in Asia.
“Hosting an opening ceremony in such a vast public space is innovative, but also extremely challenging,” Huang said. “Unlike stadiums with fixed rigging points, stages, entry and exit passages, and enclosed spaces, all stage layouts for this ceremony must be redesigned.”
The opening ceremony is scheduled to begin at 8 pm, during Chengdu’s twilight hours, and may feature a sunset and glowing skies. As athletes enter, a starry sky could serve as a natural backdrop, she said.
Athletes will parade in a relaxed “city walk” style, allowing them to immerse themselves in Chengdu’s ambience as a “park city”, Huang said.
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