Olympics Producer Advising on N.Y. Sept. 11 Ceremonies

New York City has retained Don Mischer, who produced the opening and closing ceremonies for this year’s Winter Olympics as well as the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, as a consultant for its Sept. 11 commemoration.

Mischer and his team will help coordinate the all-day memorial, which begins with a bagpipe procession from each of the five boroughs to the World Trade Center site, followed by a ceremony at ground zero that will include reading the names of 2,823 people killed in the attack.

“They’re providing a lot of logistical advice in executing our vision for the day,” said Ed Skyler, a spokesman for New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who confirmed Mischer’s participation. Bloomberg recently said that his goal is for the event to be “simple and powerful.”

Various anniversary memorials are scheduled across the country; still, most media attention will undoubtedly focus on New York, which President Bush will visit after stops at the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa., where United Flight 93 crashed.

Mischer, whose associate David Goldberg has spent the past few weeks in New York helping coordinate plans, likened the logistics involved to the Olympics. “What we’re really doing is trying to help them mount the day,” he said.

Over his career Mischer has produced a lengthy list of live events and television specials, from the Emmy Awards and Kennedy Center Honors to festivities marking Hong Kong’s reunification with China.

Notably, to fulfill his Olympic commitment he withdrew as producer of last year’s Emmys, initially pushed back by Sept. 11, after a second postponement followed the U.S. attack on Afghanistan.