Olympic Closing Ceremony Tries to Palm Off Dog Beach as Venice Beach

The Olympics organizers better bring their GPS with them when they arrive in Los Angeles in 2028.

It didn’t take much for American viewers to notice that the Paris Olympics and even some TV networks got their California beaches all mixed up during the closing ceremony on Sunday.

There was much excitement as the Olympic flag travelled from Paris to L.A. with a little help from Tom Cruise and viewers around the world were thrilled to see the Red Hot Chilli Peppers , Billie Eilish and Snoop Dogg perform from a beach stage in perfect sunshine at Venice Beach.

Only it wasn’t Venice Beach at all. It was Long Beach.

And although it’s only a little short of 30 miles between the two, any local will tell you that can be quite a journey during rush hour along the I-405 freeway.

According to the Los Angeles Times , Long Beach residents were quite happy to put up with the traffic and the inconvenience when the film crews arrived to shoot the concerts last week amid much secrecy.

A lifeguard tower was built as a stage and fake palm trees were littered across the sand.

But the locals were not so happy when Long Beach was missing from the credits.

On its French language X account, the Olympics wrote : “The Olympic flag on Venice Beach!”

And both NBC in the U.S. and the BBC in Britain misidentified the scene of the concert as Venice Beach.

On its website, NBC wrote that after Cruise repelled into the Stade de France to collect the Olympic flag from gymnast Simone Biles, mountain biker Kate Courtney, skate boarder Jagger Eaton and legendary gold medal sprinter Michel Johnson carried it to, not Long Beach but “Venice Beach where Los Angeles icons The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Billie Eilish stood by to deliver a high-energy beachside performance.”

Some social media users recognized it was Long Beach, but were surprised it looked so tidy and tropical.

“This is Rosie’s Dog Beach, where we walk our dogs every day, and it really does look like this except they put in a few extra palm trees because the actual palm trees are taller and further from the water,” said one user.

Another post read: “Did they plant full on palm trees w coconuts at long beach for this. Long beach don’t look like this.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.