Celebrate.

The city of Sydney hosts one of the largest, most popular New Year’s Eve celebrations in the world.  Planning for the event begins over a year in advance and almost one hundred professionals coordinate the entire event.  The cost of the enormous firework celebration is over millions of dollars, but produces upwards of $150 million in economic benefits to the city of Sydney (Sydney Media).  Each year thousands of people enjoy this wonderful event Sydney puts on free of charge, and this year I was one of them.

Along with the thousands of others flocking to the Sydney Harbour on December 31^st, 2010, my study abroad group caught a train to the center of the city and walked down to Rushcutters Bay.  We searched for a good view of the Harbour Bridge and surrounding buildings where the fireworks are launched. The fireworks are synchronized to music, but we were not able to hear it from where we were sitting.  The public is able to tune into the radio station 104.1 2Day FM to hear the music that went with the show (Sydney Media).  Because we left for the harbour around 5:30 PM we had a few hours to kill until the show began.  Luckily for us, there was a DJ nearby and plenty of people dancing.  A few of us joined them and before we knew it the 2011 was approaching.  We had a great view of the harbour, making the fireworks show an awesome experience. 

Tourist from all over the world together with native Australians seemed to be enjoying the event alongside us.The New Year celebration attracts international and interstate visitors alike, and Sydney’s tourism industry greatly benefits over the holiday.  According to Sydney Media, the average stay in Sydney over the holiday is 16 nights for international visitors and 8 nights for interstate visitors.  The tourism industry is rewarded by Sydney’s special holiday performance and the celebration is world renowned and millions of people want to take part in the event.