Sydney spectacular to set off global New Year celebrations

Australia’s biggest city is preparing to lead the world in welcoming the New Year with spectacular fireworks over Sydney Harbour. In Sydney, rocked by deadly drama just before Christmas when an Iranian-born gunman took 17 hostages in the city’s financial hub, tonnes of fireworks will explode over the harbour with an expected attendance of 1.6 million people. Millions around the world will celebrate when the clock ticks past midnight, ringing in 2015 with massive fireworks displays, concerts and light shows.

We are celebrating that we are a multicultural, harmonious community but we will be thinking about what happened. We are very confident that it will be a safe event.

Sydney Mayor Clover Moore

Across Asia, millions will be partying with Hong Kong’s dazzling skyline along Victoria Harbour set to light up during an eight-minute pyrotechnic display. In Japan, the Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo brought out stocks of lucky charms and set up large offertory boxes as it prepared to welcome a huge wave of worshippers overnight. The gigantic shrine expects three million visitors in the first three days of the new year. Meanwhile in Paris, the Champs-Elysees will be reserved for pedestrians to allow them to watch a visual spectacle projected onto the Arc de Triomphe 15 minutes before the start of the new year.

World sydney new year