I’m sweltering here at the Bird’s Nest stadium in the Olympic Green, in aisle 209, row 14, seat 8. So far, the best thing about this is that my seat has a lucky number: An 8 p.m. start on 8-8-2008 in seat 8. What more could I ask for?

How about a wet towel?

I’m soaking wet. I haven’t been this hot since I visited Death Valley, and that was a dry heat. I can’t imagine there won’t be some medical situation here, either for the spectators, the performers or the athletes.

There is a gray shroud over the stadium. I can see across, but the sky is leaden. The stadium was designed with a sort of tarp-like membrane along the top, presumably to keep spectators dry. Instead, it’s keeping any air from circulating. Weather.com says it’s 88 degrees, but feels like 97, and this is after sunset.

The spectators, who seem to have planned better than I did, brought handkerchiefs and towels to wipe the sweat off their brows. The heat so enervated me that I actually put my head down and fell asleep for 20 minutes out of exhaustion.

You might think the only people who are comfortable here would be the VIPs in the private boxes (not exactly a proletarian concept) that ring the stadium between the second and top tiers. But most of the men are wearing suits and the boxes are not enclosed. They do have large hand fans, however.

When I got here, almost three hours before the event started, I found a bag on my seat that every spectator received. It was canvas, and filled with all sorts of goodies — presumably for fans to contribute to the show. Items included a hard-bound program, a flashlight, a shiny strobe wand, a Chinese drum/rattle, and a Chinese flag that we are, presumably, expected to wave as the national team walks in. There also was a box of five rubber Livestrong-type bracelets in the colors of the Olympic rings, with Chinese characters on them. The message said they were called “smiling bracelets.”

The stadium, which holds 91,000, is an imposing structure inside, but the seats in the top level are a long way from the field. And one other thing … the sound system is not good. There is a lot of echoing going on and it’s nearly impossible to decipher the announcements. The Bird’s Nest may be an architectural triumph but it is an acoustic disaster.