New decade starts with a bang
MORE than 3,600 fireworks lit up the sky over Edinburgh Castle last night as the capital’s spectacular display – choreographed to a soundtrack performed live by superstar DJ Mark Ronson in Princes Street Gardens – kicked off the new decade. Some 3.3 tonnes of shells – containing almost 16,000 shots and bursts and more than 100,000 colourful stars – were sent soaring up to 300 metres into the air during the eight-minute spectacular. A team of pyrotechnicians spent months meticulously setting the aerial blasts to coincide with Ronson’s mash up of his hits, including Bang Bang Bang, Oh My God and Uptown Funk.
MILLIONS of revellers have welcomed in the New Year with spectacular celebrations across the globe.
Fireworks lit the night sky from Tokyo to Edinburgh, though the festive mood in Sydney, Australia – one of the first places to ring in the New Year – was overshadowed by the deadly wildfires sweeping the county.
Thousands had called for the pyrotechnic display to be cancelled, but it went ahead with the city’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore saying the celebration would “give hope to people”.
In Edinburgh, tens of thousands of people attended a Hogmanay Street Party featuring acts including Mark Ronson, Marc Almond, the Snuts and Idlewild.
Elsewhere, revellers from Auckland in New Zealand to Pyongyang, capital of isolated North Korea, welcomed the New Year with firework displays. Today the traditional annual New Year’s Day Loony Dook will see hundreds of revellers flock to South Queensferry to ring in January 1 by launching themselves into the waters of the Firth of Forth.