{"id":1878,"date":"2019-05-18T13:41:51","date_gmt":"2019-05-18T13:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/?p=1878"},"modified":"2019-09-27T05:31:06","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T05:31:06","slug":"nikki-webster-sheds-light-on-sydney-olympics-opening-ceremony-dramas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/nikki-webster-sheds-light-on-sydney-olympics-opening-ceremony-dramas\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikki Webster sheds light on Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony dramas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost 20 years on, Nikki Webster has opened up about the behind the scenes dramas from the Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

By Luke Dennehy<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

\r\n

During rehearsals in the week leading up to the Sydney 2000 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Nikki Webster, then 13, didn\u2019t know if she was going to be able to fly across Stadium Australia or not.<\/p>\r\n

Webster, now 32, had been picked after months of auditions to have a starring role in the Opening Ceremony that would go on to make her a household name around the world.<\/p>\r\n

However things were a bit tense on the day leading up to the showstopping performance.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThe only thing I was nervous about was being able to fly, because that was a major part of it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI think in two of the dress rehearsals the week before it was so windy that I couldn\u2019t fly.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t that I didn\u2019t want to, but I wasn\u2019t allowed to.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThen on the day I remember the wind picked up in the afternoon and I thought it wasn\u2019t going to happen, but thankfully it did.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

For five minutes Webster was strapped into a harness as she flew across Stadium Australia in her little pink dress, before landing and later on going on to sing Under The Southern Skies<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n

She was part of a magical Opening Ceremony that to this day is considered one of the best in Olympic history.<\/p>\r\n

The Sydney Olympics will celebrate the Games\u2019 20 year anniversary next year and while there were some incredible sporting performances, no doubt the event was kicked off emphatically with the Opening Ceremony.<\/p>\r\n

It was a time for the Australian entertainment and creative industry to have their moment.<\/p>\r\n

It was a night that Australia showed the world what we could do and part of that was through the eyes of little Nikki Webster.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Webster also had a unique insight into an event on the night that could have changed how the world viewed the night historically.<\/p>\r\n

No doubt many of us can recall the moment when the ring of fire that Cathy Freeman ignited stalled on its journey upwards toward the cauldron at the top of the Olympic stadium.<\/p>\r\n

Millions of Aussies watched in agonising silence when the Sydney Olympic cauldron halted above Freeman\u2019s head.<\/p>\r\n

Webster says she knew exactly what was going on when the Olympic flame cauldron suffered a glitch and Freeman was left standing there as the whole world waited for her to light the Olympic flame.<\/p>\r\n

The nervous tension of the Opening Ceremony organisers was palpable.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI had my ear pieces on so I did wonder what was going on with the cauldron, but I think Cathy and the team and the way they handled themselves was amazing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cShe was so composed, and whatever happened mechanically, they sorted it out.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

It was a night she will never forget.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIt was pretty awesome,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhen you do a musical you do eight shows a week for eight months, you live and breath it and you go through so many emotions. But this was one night, I had to get it right with one performance.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIt worked out so well, and then it was over.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Going back a few months earlier before the Sydney Olympics, Webster revealed it was a top-secret operation even landing the role.<\/p>\r\n

She had been a child performer all of her life, performing on Good Morning Australia<\/em> with Bert Newton as well as in musicals such as Cinderella<\/em> which caught the attention of Olympic organisers.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIt was very, very hard, about six months of auditions,\u201d Webster said of getting the role.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think people realise how intense it was.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI was pretty much only told a couple of weeks before the Opening Ceremony that I got the gig and I\u2019m sure they had their reasons as they wanted to keep it very organic.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cBut at the time it was very stressful, I was thinking, \u2018am I going to get this role or not?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI had to sign confidentiality forms at the time.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

It was a very long process as organisers wanted to make sure they had the right girl for the starring role in the Opening Ceremony.<\/p>\r\n

Perhaps also the organisers didn\u2019t let her know if she got the role because of the extraordinary secrecy around the Opening Ceremony.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cSo from the first audition we didn\u2019t hear anything for months and then it was just a process of elimination,\u201d Webster said.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Over those few months even though she didn\u2019t know if she had the role or not, Webster continued to rehearse under incredible secrecy.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThe role kept developing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI think originally from my understanding she was only going to fall asleep and dream, and the rest of the Opening Ceremony was going to be her dream.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cHowever they wanted her in each segment.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cSo it was pretty awesome to be working with everyone and working out how it was all going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The organisers got it 100 per cent right by choosing Webster. Confident for her age and naturally media savvy, she was the perfect choice.<\/p>\r\n

The day after the Opening Ceremony was absolutely chaos for Webster and her parents Tina and Mark.<\/p>\r\n

Before social media even existed, her Opening Ceremony moment had gone viral.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWe had media requests from around the world,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cEvery single room in my house had a different news crew in it the next day.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cMy Mum and Dad were trying to make pancakes for everyone. It was just fun, we met people from all around the world. It was all part of the learning experience.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Suddenly Webster was not your average Sydney school and things were soon to change forever.<\/p>\r\n

Soon after the Opening Ceremony she signed with powerful record company BMG, which was later became Sony BMG.<\/p>\r\n

In June 2001, following on from the September 2000 Olympic Games, her single Strawberry Kisses<\/em> was released and ended up going to No. 2 on the Australian ARIA singles charts.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cMy life kind of just changed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cAll the dreams that I planned out that I would do after school finished, like recording music, making outfits, a clothing range, all came true when I was 13.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThere was no book on how to deal with it. There were no instructions on how to deal with management, how to work it out and what we should do.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWe were kind of learning together as a family. It was an interesting experience.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Because of her profile Webster was offered opportunities overseas, but she is glad she stayed in Australia.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThere were plenty of offers straight after the Olympics to pack up and move to America, and maybe I would have had a different career if I did, who knows?\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cBut as a family we wanted to stay in Australia, my brother was young and we were growing up. So we stayed.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Webster ended up releasing three albums in Australia, the last one Let\u2019s Dance<\/em> in 2004.<\/p>\r\n

The lead single from that album, also called Let\u2019s Dance<\/em>, was co-written by Delta Goodrem and former Australian Idol judge Mark Holden.<\/p>\r\n

While all her albums were released before she finished high school, Webster doesn\u2019t have any regrets about how her career has gone.<\/p>\r\n

Just like she was when she was 13 when the world got to know her, she is incredibly positive to this day.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI\u2019m always so positive about everything that has happened,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThe people I met, the things I got to do. It\u2019s been absolutely amazing.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Now married to Matthew McMah, the couple have two children, Skylah, 5, and Malachi, 1.<\/p>\r\n

She runs three dance schools in New South Wales and that is now her passion.<\/p>\r\n

Webster has shown Skylah little clips of her Opening Ceremony performance and she looks forward to showing it to her in its entirety.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI think she is ready to watch the whole thing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cTo understand the culture of Australia, the deep sea dreaming, and how the whole thing was represented.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Webster also looks back at the Sydney Olympics with a sense of innocence; the world was such a different place back then.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cIt was before September 11, before all of that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThankfully we didn\u2019t have any extra concerns about security. I\u2019m glad as a child I didn\u2019t have those extra concerns.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cNo one was thinking about that. It was all about bringing everyone together and putting Australia on the map.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

She will always have a special place in Australian history, on that night on September 15, 2000, when the world\u2019s eyes were on Sydney, Australia.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Source: news.com.au<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost 20 years on, Nikki Webster has opened up about the behind the scenes dramas from the Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony. By Luke Dennehy During rehearsals in the week leading up to the Sydney 2000 Olympics Opening Ceremony, Nikki Webster, then 13, didn\u2019t know if she was going to be able to fly across Stadium … Continue reading<\/a>Nikki Webster sheds light on Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony dramas<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-64"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1878"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1909,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878\/revisions\/1909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nikkiwebsterfan.net\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}