How Long Is the 2026 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony?

The Opening Ceremony for the 2026 Winter Olympics will take place Friday, February 6, and is being held primarily at Milan’s historic San Siro Stadium. The Olympic torch relay will culminate in the lighting of the cauldron — and for the first time in Olympics history there will be two cauldrons, one in Milan and another in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

The program includes a performance from Mariah Carey, whom the local Olympic committee said "fully represents the emotional atmosphere that accompanies the run-up to the Games," noting that "music is a universal language" that ties into the ceremony’s theme of harmony.

Also scheduled to appear are Andrea Bocelli, Pierfrancesco Favino, Laura Pausini and The Paper star Sabrina Impacciatore. Tickets list the runtime at three hours, roughly equal to previous modern opening ceremonies; the full replays for Paris 2024 and Tokyo 2020 ran about four hours, while Beijing 2022 was about two and a half hours.