UPDATE: The article was updated with details about the 2024 Lunar New Year fireworks show.
The Hong Kong government has confirmed that the annual Lunar New Year fireworks display is back on the city’s event calendar for 2024. The show, which is usually held at Victoria Harbour on the second day of Chinese New Year, will take place on February 11, 2024, at 8pm.
According to The Standard, this year the theme for the event will be ‘China is Strong in the Year of the Dragon, When All Industries Are Prosperous’ and will feature eight scenes of fireworks during a 23-long-minute show. Three barges will release 23,888 fireworks in Victoria Harbour, opposite the Wan Chai Convention and Exhibition Centre. The display will feature red and gold figure eights, as well as fireworks shaped like smiling faces, double red hearts, and gold ingots.
The fireworks show was cancelled in 2020 due to social unrest, and every year since then due to the Covid-19 pandemic and Hong Kong’s resulting social-distancing regulations that prohibited large-scale gatherings. The government also cancelled pyrotechnics shows for National Day and New Year’s Eve from 2020 from 2022, but revived the tradition with the return of this year’s October 1 fireworks.
There are several other fireworks displays that took place at the end of last year, such as the New Year’s Eve countdown event on December 31. The highlight was a new 10-minute fire-and-light show that happened over three consecutive weekends and the Christmas holidays as part of the Hong Kong WinterFest.
Hong Kong Disneyland also staged its first New Year’s Eve countdown party on December 31 in front of the Castle of Magical Dreams. The park hosted a special live performance with Disney friends and a ‘Momentous’ Nighttime Spectacular experience to welcome 2024.
Header image credits: Hong Kong Tourism Board