2023: Sydney leads global New Year’s celebrations

After two years of COVID disruptions, Australia celebrated its first New Year’s Eve without restrictions. More than a million revellers are anticipated to converge on Sydney’s harborfront to take in a lavish fireworks show.

With a public countdown and fireworks show over its iconic opera house, Sydney is one of the first major cities in the world to ring in the new year, drawing enormous television audiences from all around the globe.

Clover Moore, the lord mayor of Sydney, declared: “This New Year’s Eve, we are announcing Sydney is back as we kick off festivities throughout the world and bring in the new year with a boom.”

Crowd restrictions and fewer celebrations resulted from lockdowns at the end of 2020 and from an increase in Omicron cases at the end of 2021. But this year, Australia, like many other countries around the world, reopened its borders and got rid of laws that kept people from mixing. This made it easier to celebrate.

With 2,000 fireworks sent off from each of the Sydney Opera House’s four sails and 7,000 fireworks released from more locations on the Sydney Harbour Bridge than ever before, Sydney Harbor will be illuminated in a kaleidoscope of colours.

Fireworks will be sent off from four building rooftops to frame the stunning performance for the first time in 12 years, according to the organisers.

For the multimillion-dollar festival centred on the themes of diversity and acceptance, more than 1 million people are anticipated to swarm along Sydney’s waterfront.

A rainbow waterfall is said to be the main attraction at the New Year’s Eve party.

Stephen Gilby, the director of the city’s major events and festivals, told the Sydney Morning Herald that it is the “party Sydney deserves.”

“We’re really happy this year to be able to welcome people back to the foreshores of Sydney Harbour for Sydney’s world-famous New Year’s Eve celebrations,” he said. “We’ve had a couple of fairly difficult years.

More than a million people would attend the events in Sydney before the epidemic, and a billion more would watch them from other parts of the world.

The second-largest city in Australia, Melbourne, will host a family-friendly fireworks show along the Yarra River as dusk falls, followed by a second session at midnight.