(QINGDAO, August 4) -- The Olympic Sailing start-off ceremony will take place in the Qingdao Olympic sailing center park starting at 7:00 p.m. on August 9. Officials in charge of planning the event promise that it will be, "the largest, most organized, most artistic, most exciting and most beautiful ceremony ever," as reported by the Qingdao Morning News.

The ceremony is will be made up of three parts: an enactment of "Raising the Sails in Qingdao", a performance of "Love in the Seas" and a brilliant firework display at 10 p.m. to end the ceremony. Some 2,000 actors will participate in the ceremony, along with 20 Qingdao singers.

The ceremony will also showcase the lighting of the Qingdao Olympic cauldron. The fire will be taken directly from the torch fire at the Opening Ceremony in Beijing and will burn until August 24, when it will be extinguished at the same time as the flame in Beijing.

Rehearsals have already started for the ceremony, with the first dress rehearsal to be done on August 5. The ceremony will be aired on the Qingdao Television Station and Shandong Television Station. CCTV will broadcast a rerun of the ceremony on August 10.

Note: Sailing competition will take place in Qingdao, China, a coastal city on the Yellow Sea approximately 500 miles southeast of Beijing. Once a colony of Germany and Japan, the city boasts European architecture, adding charm to one of China's major ports for international trade. Also of German influence, the city is famous for its lager, and is home to the Qingdao (Tsingtao) Beer Brewery, the tenth-largest brewery in the world.