At the end of one of those lines, waiting to assist her thirsty customers' needs, is Meredith Pierce, a 21-year-old student from The College of New Jersey. Meredith was a cashier at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ga., and was hired by Robert Billet Promotions, a company selling Coca-Cola at the Olympic games.
"It was the opportunity of a lifetime to be able to see the Olympic games, while getting paid to work," Meredith said.
Her main duties were to collect money from the vendors, who wore backpacks containing at least 40 bottles of 20-ounce beverages of Coke, Diet Coke or Power Aid. She stayed at the truck assisting customers and reloading the vendors' backpacks.
The exact location of the truck varied from day to day. It was usually outside the park in rented lots.
The truck that Meredith worked at did extremely well at the games because of the company's marketing. The company sold bottles for $1, while other vendors sold the same exact bottle of Coke for $3.
"Our low price forced our competitors to have to change their price to $1 as well," Meredith said. "They were definitely not happy about this unexpected change."
The atmosphere among the various concession stands was quite competitive from that moment on, Meredith said. Since the Robert Billet Promotions Company had another distinct advantage -- mobility -- the backpack-carrying vendors tended to sell more Coke. The other stands usually drew long lines, so instead of waiting in one of those lines, someone could purchase the Coke from a mobile vendor.
"It really didn't matter how much money was made, because the company was more interested in the publicity for Coke than in how much was actually sold during the games," Meredith said.
This unique business attitude was not accepted with open arms outside of the company. The fact is, it angered many other concession stands, because they rented out their spots for a considerable amount of money, and because of necessary price-lowering, they were not making a profit.
Perhaps the people feeling the most animosity towards Robert Billet were the other promotion companies selling Coke.
"They were extremely upset with us for taking all the Coke business away from them, because our Coke prices were cheaper," Meredith said.
This intense fighting continued for days amongst the concession stands -- until the day the bombing occurred.
The Olympic Park bombing changed the attitude of the Olympics. It brought fear into the eyes of the millions of spectators, along with the speculation of security measures.
Although Meredith was not at the park when the bombing took place, she learned about the event on the television news with the rest of the world that night.
Meredith said, "The first thing I did was to call my mom to let her know that I was OK."
The next day, the existing competitive tension between the concession stands was changed into a fear about the security of the Olympic games. Meredith returned to work and noticed a huge difference in the atmosphere. Olympic Park was shut down. Tough restrictions on security were placed. Guards started to search every bag outside of the park entrance, creating long lines extending for blocks.
Although Meredith was only one of the millions who experienced the Olympics in Atlanta this summer, she had a unique view of the games that many did not get the chance to see from the concession stand. She saw the effects of commercialism at the games -- how it can influence so many businesses by the power of money, and how it took the fear brought on by the bombing to make this intense competition subside.
Copyright 1997 Karen Ferko. All Rights Reserved.