The Hong Kong Tourism Board announced that this year’s New Year’s fireworks show will be 12 minutes long, and launched from five barges positioned across a 1.3 km stretch between Central and Causeway Bay — making it the “the biggest and longest New Year countdown firework display the city has ever seen”.
The countdown will revolve around the theme ‘New Year New Legend’, and will take spectators on a journey through the four seasons of winter, spring, summer, and autumn. Onlookers will get an audiovisual display that will include silver winter snowflakes and colourful summer imagery.
In the run-up to the fireworks display, a large countdown clock will appear on the façade of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai. When the clock strikes midnight, audiences will hear a new musical arrangement combining various genres of music — including electronic, Western classical and Chinese instrumental — that will play during the show.
There will also be special displays — called ‘pre-show wish-making sessions’ — every 15 minutes from 11pm onwards. Pyrotechnics will shoot out from the rooftops of three prominent harbourfront high-rises on Hong Kong Island, illuminating the sky in four different colours.
The city’s tourism board also premiered a new 10-minute-long fireworks display as part of its Hong Kong WinterFest celebrations. The show — which takes place every weekend in December as well as during the Christmas holidays — features the HK monogram that was a part of the Harbour Chill Carnival fireworks display in the summer, as well as Christmas trees and present boxes icons created especially for this year’s Yuletide festivities.
Hong Kong’s iconic fireworks displays, which have been cancelled every year since 2019, made comebacks over the past few months, starting with the 23-minute National Day show that took place on October 1. The annual Lunar New Year fireworks display will also return on February 11 for next year’s Chinese New Year festivities.
Hong Kong Disneyland will also stage its first New Year’s Eve countdown party on December 31 in front of the Castle of Magical Dreams. The park will host a special live performance with Disney friends and a ‘Momentous’ Nighttime Spectacular experience to welcome 2024.
Image credits: Hong Kong Tourism Board
