After a year like this, expect a strange New Year’s Eve
NEW YORK: If ever a year’s end seemed like cause for celebration, 2020 might be it. Yet the coronavirus scourge that dominated the year is also looming over New Year’s festivities and forcing officials worldwide to tone them down.
From New York’s Times Square to Sydney Harbour, big public blowouts are being turned into TV-only shows and digital events. Fireworks displays have been cancelled from the Las Vegas Strip to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Even private parties in some places are restricted.
Days ahead of the ball drop in Times Square, it clearly wasn’t New Year’s as usual at the Crossroads of the World. There was room to roam on sidewalks that would normally be all but impassable. Vendors’ carts and window displays at the area’s struggling gift shops flaunted few 2021-themed souvenirs as workers set up a stage for a celebration that will unfold this year without the usual throngs of cheering, kissing revelers. Police will block off the area so spectators can’t get a glimpse.
The event’s special guests will be first responders and essential workers. But they won’t be joining the mayor on stage to lead the countdown. Instead, each guest will watch from a private, well-spaced area.
The night’s performances — including disco diva Gloria Gaynor’s singing of the apt-for-2020 anthem “I Will Survive” — will be aimed at TV audiences.
New Year’s Eve will look different around the world after a year in which the virus killed an estimated 1.8 million people. Germany banned the sale of fireworks, which residents usually set off in on the streets, and a pyrotechnics show at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate is off. So, too, are the fireworks over the River Thames in locked-down London However, Big Ben, which has been largely silent since 2017 while its clock tower is restored, will sound 12 bongs at midnight.
The Netherlands moved the national countdown from an Amsterdam park to a soccer stadium, where spectators won’t be allowed in and pyrotechnics will be replaced with “electric fireworks.” Pope Francis will skip his typical December 31 visit to the Vaticans life-sized Nativity scene. Rio de Janeiro nixed the fireworks and open-air concerts.