Facts about Sydney's New Year's Eve Fireworks Display

 

Fast facts about Sydney's New Year's Eve fireworks display provided by the City of Sydney:

- The City of Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks display is the world’s largest and most technologically advanced New Year’s Eve fireworks display.

- It draws larger crowds than Paris (100,000), London (700,000), Berlin (1 million) and New York City (1 million) with about 1.6 million people gathering on the Sydney Harbour foreshore and 2.6 million watching the fireworks on TV.

- An estimated 1 billion people around the world see the Sydney New Year’s Eve Midnight Fireworks and Bridge Effect and research by Events NSW found that Sydney New Year’s Eve contributes $156 million to the local economy.

- Fifteen months of hard work go into designing and preparing Sydney New Year’s Eve each year. The City of Sydney’s NYE12 team has already started work on 2013 Sydney New Year’s Eve.

- The 2012 Sydney New Year’s Eve Creative Director, Kylie Minogue, has worked with the City’s team of six full-time Sydney New Year’s Eve staff led by Producer Aneurin Coffey, to develop the Embrace theme for this year’s event.

- Kylie describes Embrace as “all about acceptance, tolerance, fun and, above all, love”.

- The Embrace icon is a swirl of coloured sails in magenta, yellow, purple and red, which is marked with Kylie’s signature K.

- Embrace has four subthemes: Embrace Love, Embrace Sydney, Embrace the Possibility and Embrace the Moment.

- The City has developed a special smartphone app with Telstra that will light up people’s phone screens in tandem with the colour lighting of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House to mark the end of 2012.

- The synchronised colour moments will occur at 10.15pm, 11pm, 11.30pm and 11.45pm to build up excitement as the clock ticks closer to midnight, and app users will be reminded to hold their phones to the sky to be a part of the celebration, transforming the harbour with a sea of colour.

- Each year the top-secret Sydney Harbour Bridge Effect is a highly anticipated part of the night and is only revealed following the end of the Midnight Fireworks display. - The effect has been a highlight since the mid-1990s when a smiley face appeared.

Other bridge effects have included a peace symbol and dove (2002), a heart (2005) and an hourglass (2007).

- Over 1,000 accredited personnel work on the night of the event to ensure everything runs smoothly, with 300 volunteers also pledging their time and support to help with Sydney New Year’s Eve.

- The night begins when the words ‘Welcome to Sydney’ are projected on the pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 16 languages, including English, Gadigal, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Greek, Italian, Swahili, Korean, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese. These languages represent Sydney’s top migrant populations and tourist nationalities.

- The fireworks display is carefully designed by Sydney’s Foti International Fireworks, led by Fireworks Director Fortunato Foti, and requires a pyrotechnical crew of 45 people. This is the 13th consecutive year the company has been involved in Sydney New Year’s Eve. Foti Fireworks is a carbon-neutral company that uses carbon credits, low-environmental-impact fireworks and recycling.

- Approximately 11,000 shells, 25,000 shooting comets and 100,000 individual pyrotechnic effects will be used in the display, which is made up of 7 tonnes of fireworks.

- Fourteen shipping containers of equipment, weighing 120 tonnes, are needed for both the 9PM Family Fireworks and Midnight Fireworks displays.

- Twelve computers will digitally launch the fireworks from Sydney Harbour Bridge, barges and buildings, shooting 10,000 cues. The computers will be used to fire the show and will ensure the fireworks are synchronised to the music.

- More than 60 kilometres of wire and cables link the launch computers and there are 130 firing points on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

- The 9PM Family Fireworks will go off from four fireworks barges, while the Midnight Fireworks will ascend from seven barges and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

- Fireworks will also be launched from the rooftops of seven city buildings including the Four Seasons Hotel, Gold Fields House, Gateway, AMP Centre tower, Chifley Tower, Governor Phillip Tower and AMP Sydney Cove.

- The Harbour of Light Parade features 52 illuminated boats, which make a majestic passage within and around the Sydney Harbour Exclusion Zone after the 9PM Family Fireworks, building up excitement before the countdown to midnight.

- The boats carry over 8,000 people and join more than 3,000 other vessels celebrating NYE on Sydney Harbour

To download the NYE12 smartphone app, visit sydneynewyearseve.com/app or search your app store for ‘Sydney New Year’s Eve’.