On 27 July, the world will see an elaborate and costly British cinematic event: the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, directed by Oscar-winner Danny Boyle. What on earth is it going to be like? So far, all we know is that he is hiring 10,000 people as extras to be performers and percussionists, and that they will have to make themselves available to rehearse two or three times a week, from March until the big day. No further announcements will be made until the new year. But all followers of the cinema know that Boyle's opening ceremony will be Britain's screen spectacular of 2012.

The pressure is on for Boyle to deliver something of which we can all be proud, and it is no surprise that a movie director has been chosen. The opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing games was stunning, costing approximately $100m and conceived by the director Zhang Yimou not as a live happening to be captured by television cameras, but as a screen artefact, requiring thousands and thousands of people in what was effectively a colossal outdoor studio. Parts of the gobsmacking firework display did not actually "happen": images were digitally inserted into the TV coverage at the right moment. This was an international multimedia event, conceived on a massive and cinematic scale.

The grammar and style of the opening ceremony was in any case arguably invented by a film director, Leni Riefenstahl, for the 1936 Berlin Games, the collective memory of which was shaped by her two years later in the film Olympia. It created a dynamic new language for filming sports events. (The torch run, invented for the 1936 Games, was restaged by Riefenstahl for her film.) But in 2008, Zhang Yimou set a new gold standard for the Olympic spectacular.

How is Boyle going to top it? Our handover ceremony back in Beijing was thought to be a bit ramshackle, involving an unkempt Boris Johnson cheerfully waving a flag, Leona Lewis, Jimmy Page, David Beckham and a big red double-decker bus. We're going to have to do better than that.

I'm guessing that Boyle may well wish to deploy national motifs from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Or, considering the success of Slumdog Millionaire, he might execute a smart and contemporary twist, bringing in a fusion-cuisine of choreography, celebrating modern Britain's Asian and African influences, leading to an Anglobalised Bollywood dance spectacular. Who knows?

The central event of the opening ceremony was once the releasing of doves. Sadly, at the 1988 Seoul Games, many doves were burned alive by the Olympic flame, and it now doesn't happen. Instead, the big Hollywood moment centres on the person chosen to light the flame in the stadium. No one has matched the 1996 Atlanta Games in this regard, which had Muhammad Ali doing the honours (a gold medallist in 1960). Boyle will surely demand a big say, perhaps the only say, in who does this for London 2012: it is a serious casting decision, and casting decisions are the director's responsibility. Will it be Sir Steve Redgrave? Denise Lewis? My money is on Dame Kelly Holmes. Either way, Boyle's opening ceremony is 2012's biggest nail-biter. An awful lot of national and industry pride is riding on it.

Stephen Bayley, design critic



My own suggestion that Sebastian Coe and his army of bureaucrats should be dressed in penitential costumes and chained together, then made to parade slowly around the stadium in muted lighting chanting "Mea culpa, mea culpa" has been ignored.

Instead, when David Cameron saw the first proposals for the Olympic ceremony, he slapped his sleek forehead, groaned, "By George, another millennium cock-up" and suddenly found a remedial £40m. Or that's my assumption.

Never mind sport, the Olympics tend to encourage dictatorial behaviour and world-beating kitsch gestures. Not even an extra £40m is going to help Danny Boyle reach the officially mandated kitsch targets. In the matter of spectacular bad taste, Beijing had the advantage of a docile army of athletic slave labour. We have puerile soft-toy mascots and the worst logo in the entire history of graphics.

It is absurd to say you cannot do kitsch badly. I fear you can. With luck, all the guests will be stuck on the tube, as they were on 31 December 1999.

Stephen Bayley is a former creative director of the Millennium Dome; he resigned from the post in 1998

Tinchy Stryder, musician



I grew up in east London, so I'm really excited about the Olympics. For the opening ceremony, I'd want to get all the biggest stars in the world together to record and perform a track: Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, Coldplay, Adele and myself. We'd all touch down in the stadium in helicopters, in total darkness; there'd be explosions, bright lights, flames, and we'd step out in glow-in-the dark suits. I only really like watching the 100m, so I'd have Usain Bolt running around the track in a glow-in-the-dark suit. After we'd performed, the flames would go down and the lights would come up, and the stadium would be lit with the colours of the Union flag. Then we're good to go.

Haroon Mirza, artist



A game will be played between two teams made up of the CEOs of the Olympics' corporate sponsors. There will be two leaders, whose names will be picked from a hat, and they will proceed to pick who they want as team members, Apprentice-style. Once the teams are formed, they will simultaneously throw javelins from either side of the stadium, to see who can throw the furthest. Hopefully, no one will get hurt. Boris Johnson will be the referee, and he will be sporting a cycle helmet designed by an artist.

There is no prize or winner, but there will be a half-time break in which the contestants can enjoy Haroon's custom-made cocktail, The Ultimate Test – 50% Pepsi and 50% Coca-Cola, with ice – in a mug of their choice.

Haroon Mirza won the 2010 Northern Art prize, and a Silver Lion at this year's Venice Biennale

Josie Rourke, theatre director



My fantasy opening ceremonyI would want to celebrate something great about British performance: our ability to be eccentric, diverse, provisional, charming, quirky. It would be a giant street party involving the whole of London, stretching all the way from White City in the west, where we held the 1908 Olympics, to the new stadium in the east. I'd close off roads along the route, and make one long table so people could go out into the streets and share dinner: a cross between the royal wedding and the Blitz blackouts, with a flavour of the Notting Hill carnival. When it got dark, I'd switch off the streetlamps and ask people to turn their lights off, and make the whole thing beautifully illuminated, lighting up front gardens and homes along the route.

The problem with opening ceremonies is that they're essentially theatre created for TV. Instead, this would make a show out of London's streets and the people who live in them. And if it rains? I'd leave that to my Subcommittee for Umbrellas. Or construct a vast retractable roof.

Josie Rourke is artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse in London

Spartacus Chetwynd, artist



I would bring an attitude of spontaneity, immediacy and irreverence in place of the officialdom. I would prefer a regionalised plan over the current tendency towards centralised management and mothership sporting arenas. There would be a feeling that the event was organised by everyone present; people would know they could get tickets easily, thanks to organisation at grassroots level. Access would be similar to walking on to a local common or town square.

Transport, accommodation, ticketing, communications: all would be facilitated through the internet and good will. Everyone in the UK who has a boat would go to the European mainland to pick up people wanting to visit the Olympics. The Eurostar would be used exclusively for athletes; the ferries and boats would transport civilians.

The venues would be outdoor only and have mainly standing room, in order to keep costs down. The events would be dispersed regionally. For example, aquatics could be around the Isles of Scilly. Fencing could be shared between the Callanish standing stones, Outer Hebrides and Lewis. The shot put, javelin and discus could be by the Giant's Causeway. We could host wrestling on the Yorkshire Moors, weightlifting in Cannock Chase in the Midlands, boxing in east London, athletics on Salisbury Plain, long jump and gymnastics on the Cerne Abbas Giant. Perhaps table tennis could be somewhere sheltered?

Spartacus Chetwynd was shortlisted for the 2011 Max Mara art prize for women

Mary Beard, professor of classics, Cambridge University

I don't usually like the idea of going back to ancient Greece. But we could usefully inject a bit of understatement into the opening ceremony, with all its tawdry jingoism, by thinking back to what might have happened 2,500 years ago. That would mean no paralympic procession at all. Admirable though they were in many respects, the ancient Greeks had no time for any form of bodily disability (the disabled went on the scrapheap, sometimes literally).

It would also mean no women. That might cause an outcry among ambitious female athletes; but this minor disadvantage would be more than outweighed by the fact that my half of the population could simply wash their hands of the whole thing, and not even bother to turn the television on. As for the men? Well, they should parade, in authentic ancient style, stark-naked – with Boris and other luminaries leading the way. Of course, that might be an incentive for me to turn the TV on – for a good giggle.