Olympic Park to hold weekend of celebrations to mark opening

The Olympic Park. Photograph: Phoebe Cooke

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park re-opens fully on Saturday 5 April with activities including music, sports and arts running throughout the weekend to mark the Games’ site transformation.

Around 250 local children will take part in a parade to mark the opening of the Park and the ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture, which now offers a cafe and bar for visitors checking out the skyline from architect Anish Kapoor’s ambitious creation.

Though the Stratford-based Park has attracted more than one million visitors since July 2012, it is the first time since the Games that the public are able to fully access the now-transformed site, with the South Park ‘pleasure garden’ open to the public.

“We’ve turned it into what we’re calling a 21st century pleasure garden for London,” said post-Games architect and landscape planner Dr Philip Askew, who headed the transformation project for the London Legacy Development Corporation.

“It’s a number of spaces, landscape-led, enclosed fantastic planting scheme, opportunities for play, for theatre, for hanging out generally and enjoying a new public space,” Dr Askew said.

James Corner Field Operations won the competition to design the south of the Park, which includes a tree-lined promenade lit by giant globes, a theatre space, fountains and four new activity trails.

The rest of the Park will also be open to business – for athletes of every calibre and persuasion.

The FINA/NVC Diving World Series takes place here later this month in the Aquatics Centre, whose wave-like roof measures 160m long and up to 80m wide.

And Hackney’s first ever half marathon will also pass through the Park on 22 June, before the Tour de France speeds by on 7 July.

The Olympic Park opens at 10am on Saturday 5 April, with activities running from 10am – 5pm over the weekend. For more information see here.