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Sunday, November 10, 2013

What Is It Like To Be In Sydney For New Year's Eve?

By Abby Cassinia


The New Year is all about new opportunities, new beginnings, new relationships and new experiences. New Year's Eve is a time for everybody, everywhere, to sit back, relax, get ready to party, and remember the year just gone.

New Year's Eve is the one full day where pretty much the whole world stops and gets ready to celebrate the beginning of a brand new year. New Year's Eve is often a fun night, filled with music, parties, public parades and private resolutions.

All over the world people celebrate New Year's Eve. Although people of different countries and cultures celebrate New Year's Eve in similar ways, each and every country have their own traditional ways of welcoming in the New Year that are different. New Year's Eve traditions can come from where people might live and what beliefs they have.

Sydney in Australia has a special significance when it comes to celebrating New Year. Australia is among the first major countries to actually turn into the New Year and the New Year's Eve in Sydney is the biggest Downunder. Being near the International Date Line, Sydney effectively becomes the "starting point" for all New Year's Eve celebrations. It is as if the whole world waits and watches for Sydney to officially enter into the New Year and then countdown for the rest of the world begins!

Among the major features of Sydney's New Year's Eve celebration are their two traditional fireworks held in the city's famous Sydney Harbour. Over the years, Sydney has developed a distinct tradition for ushering in the New Year with an amazing fireworks display that the whole world watches. The first one (Family Fireworks) starts at around 9.00pm and the Midnight Fireworks welcome the New Year at midnight.

The Sydney New Year's Eve midnight fireworks display is an impressive pyro technique presentation that is televised globally. Last New Year's Eve more than a billion people worldwide watched the Sydney New Year's Eve midnight fireworks on television. With firework bases strategically distributed through seven buildings around the harbour and in seven barges moored along the harbour (the seventh "barge" was actually the Harbor Bridge), the fireworks presentation played to the theme of "Embrace." A million people viewed this fiery display from vantage points along the harbour or aboard boat cruises.

Times Square in New York City is another world famous destination for New Year's Eve celebrations. More than a million people flock to this part of the city to watch the famous Time Square Ball Drop at midnight every year. This tradition has been going for more than 100 years when it started in 1907. The famous ball is composed of panels with computerized LCD lighting and drops from a temporary pole to the enthusiastic countdown of the people watching below. Like the Sydney New Year's Eve fireworks, the New York City Times Square Ball Drop is also watched nationally by millions of people on television.

Partying, music and dancing around the square and nearby buildings accompany the celebration of New Year.

In most other cities of the world, fireworks are a standard feature in celebrating New Year. In many cities, parades and parties are commonly practiced.




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