There are no shortage of examples of Olympic hosts building vast stadiums that are rarely used after the Games and with a price tag of over $500 million, the National Stadium always had the potential to become the mother of all white elephants.
"Most stadiums in the world run in normal methods are not able to make profit," Zhang Hengli, deputy general manager of the CITIC Consortium Stadium Operation Company, told Reuters.
"But China is different. Firstly we have a large population. The other thing is the stadiums in Beijing are mostly located in busy areas so we can guarantee a certain flow of people, which is a foundation of our profit.
"I believe in good economic conditions, the venue in Beijing could quite possibly make a profit."
"The Olympics ... endowed the stadium with rich cultural meaning, but such meanings will be expiring with the next Olympics coming up," Zhang said.
"So our task is to make new meanings for it. We are going to add more culture activities into it to attract the tourists visually and psychologically."
The plan, Zhang explained, was to put on two shows a day, one in the afternoon with a sporting theme and another in the evening which he hoped would become a fixture on Beijing's nightscene.
"To be honest, it's not very easy to find regular uses for a stadium," he said. "We have to understand this situation and be innovative."
"The grass pitch we have here is removable which is very expensive to set and remove. So a single football match would not be worth the cost," he said.
"So we have decided to have a sporting season of one or two months every year which will include several events."
