Olympic Opening Ceremony 2012 Start Time on NBC; Ceremony Details

The Olympics opening ceremony 2012 gets underway in London. (Source: Reuters)

We are moments away from the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games 2012 which is scheduled to kick off at 4pm EST and 9 PM GMT at the Olympic Stadium in London.

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The ceremony is expected to wow viewers, and will feature 10,000 performers, 900 children performers, nearly 13,000 props and more than 160,000 square feet of staging, the equivalent to 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to the BBC.

Uunfortunately, viewers in the U.S. won't be able to watch it live but will have to wait till 7:30 p.m. EST (6:30 p.m.  CST) to watch it. NBC is live streaming the rest of the Olympics. NBCOlympics.com will distribute some clips from the Opening Ceremony before the event airs in primetime. The clips will also be promoted across NBC Olympics' social media partners, including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. As previously announced, every Olympic sporting event will be streamed live on NBCOlympics.com. 

The opening ceremony is estimated to cost nearly $42 million. The spectacle will be directed by famed film director and producer Danny Boyle, known for such classic films such as "Trainspotting" and "Slumdog Millionaire." The opening ceremony features the Parade of Nations, as athletes from more than 200 countries march into the Olympic Stadium together in one of the most powerful symbolic events in the world.

Boyle told TODAY's Meredith Vieira Thursday that the event was going to be of an unimaginable scale. "Nothing can prepare you for the scale," he said.

"The way you experience it on television, will feel, I hope, much more immediate and visceral than you normally get. And there'll be more close-ups, for instance, which is a way of conveying emotion," Boyle added. 

The opening scene of the Ceremony is called 'Green and Pleasant' which will represent a traditional and idyllic view of the British countryside, according to the Official Site of the London Olympics.

NBC OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY FACTS

• Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney has announced that he will perform;
• First Lady Michelle Obama will lead the official U.S. delegation; 
• British filmmaker Danny Boyle is the chief director of the Opening Ceremony. He is best known internationally for the film Slumdog Millionaire, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and earned Boyle the Oscar for Best Director, in 2008;
• A cast of more than 15,000 will take part in the spectacle.