2013 started with huge celebrations on New Year’s Eve. South Africans were not the only ones that celebrated the dawn of the new year. There were some huge celebrations in Paris, Moscow, Dubai and various other major cities of the world.
In New York City more than 1 million people made their way to Times Square to celebrate the dawn of 2013. Times Square is located at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretches from West 42nd to West 47th Streets in Manhattan.
The ball drop in Times Square is one of the best-known New Year’s celebrations internationally. The ball drop has an estimated global audience of at least 1 billion people. The first ball drop ceremony took place in 1907 and New Year’s Celebrations has been held at the this spot since 1904. Only two years (1942 and 1943) were skipped along the way.
New York City celebrates New Year’s Eve almost in the middle of the American Winter. The average temperature for all the Times Square New Year’s celebrations is a whopping 1 degrees Celcius. The coldest New Year’s Eve on record for Times Square was in 1917 when the temperature dropped down to -17 degrees Celcius.
In London people more than 250,000 people from around the world gathered on the banks of the river Thames to watch a spectacular fireworks display which started as Big Ben was chiming it’s way into 2013. Clips from the 2012 London Olympics were featured in an 11-minute fireworks display over the London Eye. 12,500 fireworks were set off in the display (which has a cost of approximately £200,000).
A New Year’s Day parade was also held to celebrate the city’s 2012 Olympics glory a bit later on the 1st of January 2013. More than half a million people lined London’s streets to watch floats, cheerleaders and brass bands marching through the centre of the city.
Sydney, Australia was also one of the world’s major cities to welcome 2013. Millions of people watched the spectacular fireworks display on television. A crowd of about 1.5 million people made way to Sydney on New Year’s Eve to catch a glimpse of the display (which had an estimated cost of a whopping 6.6 million Australian Dollars). The Sydney sky was lit up twice on the night, at 9 PM and at midnight.
Aussie Pop Star Kylie Minogue (the event’s creative ambassador) chose the “Embrace” theme for the celebrations. She pressed the button that started the midnight show. A giant set of red lips in the middle of the Sydney harbour bridge counted down to midnight before the fireworks were set off. There were 100,000 individual pyrotechnic creations for the 2013 celebrations. Creations included koala, octopus and hand images in the lights. Check out a sample of the Sydney New Year’s Eve Fireworks show below:
If you could choose to attend one of these New Year’s Eve Celebrations, which one would you attend in the future? Leave a comment and let me know I’d like to hear your thoughts.
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