Beijing Olympic 2008

Olympic closing ceremony to feature 7,000 people Olympic closing ceremonies usually offer less of a spectacle than opening nights, and the Beijing finale will have less than half the participants — but that's still about 7,000 people.NBC Sports executive David Neal said Thursday he traveled 90 minutes west of Beijing to see a rehearsal of the ceremony conducted in secret on a college campus. Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, who directed the opening ceremony, does the same for the Sunday's finale, set to air via tape delay at 7 p.m. EDT on NBC."It's just unlike any other closing ceremony I've ever seen," said Neal, executive vice president of NBC Olympics. Usually a simple vehicle for extinguishing the Olympic flame and setting the stage for the next games, this year's ceremony will have a great deal of entertainment, he said.The opening ceremony was seen by 34.2 million people in the United States, a bigger audience than this year's "American Idol" finale. NBC will air the ceremony taped rather than live (Beijing's time zone is 12 hours ahead of the eastern U.S.). The same thing happened with the opening ceremony and NBC was concerned when some highlights got out over the Internet before they were broadcast on the network. But, if anything, it whetted the appetite of people who later watched on TV.