Preparations underway for Sydney’s fireworks spectacular

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Preparations are being finalised for Sydney’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.    Tens of thousands of fireworks are being placed around the city to ring in the new year but there'll be a sombre tone too being so soon after the Bondi terror attack.

Transcript

00:00it's been a bit of a sea of activity here on glebe island um both today and in the days leading up to

00:07the fireworks um on the barges behind me crews have been loading them up with some 60 tons of

00:13equipment um some of that makes up the fireworks that we will see on the 31st there'll be 40 000

00:19pyrotechnic effects this year they'll be launched across a number of launch points around the city

00:24that includes here on glebe island it includes aerial and water platforms six rooftops of

00:29buildings in the cbd and of course the opera house and the sydney harbour bridge and riannon these

00:35festivities are of course taking place in the wake of a tragedy in sydney how will the events at bondi

00:41be acknowledged on the night well um just before the fireworks at 11 p.m there'll be a minutes of

00:49silence that'll be held um the harbour bridge itself will be lit up in white that's along with the boats

00:54around the harbour during that time and the crowds that are attending the event are also being

00:59encouraged to light up their phones or turn on their phone torches as a show of solidarity to

01:05the jewish community and to honour the victims of that horrific attack in bondi beach that happened

01:09just over two weeks ago now organizers have also said that they've been in close talks with police and

01:15with the state government on the security presence in the event they said they'll do everything they

01:20can to keep the attendees safe on the big night yeah there'll certainly be a big ramp up in security

01:26for new year's celebrations and riannon for the show itself do we have any new elements uh things

01:32that we haven't seen before that might be on display well this year um there'll be a seven

01:38kilometer firework footprint and that's i think a fancy way of saying that there'll be a lot of fireworks

01:43over a large area um one of the biggest ever we heard from fortunato foti earlier he and his company

01:50have been the mastermind behind this whole thing for about 29 years now and you know it's always couched in

01:55the promise that it'll be bigger and better than ever there'll be a couple of new effects or new

01:59elements that we'll see this year some of that includes there'll be more firing points on the

02:03western side of the bridge which means that people on both the east and west of sydney will get

02:07a better view there'll be more pyrotechnics on the bridge itself 212 firing points across the bridge

02:13which is again their most ever people who are looking very closely might see some fireworks in the

02:18shapes of native australian animals and plants like cockatoos koalas and waratahs

02:23um and there'll also be extra city rooftops and barges around the city that will be firing those

02:28off and we know that people come from near and far to see sydney's fireworks how many people are we

02:34expecting this new year's eve and what's the advice to people who are heading into the city

02:39there'll be about a million people uh down on vantage points around the harbour and surrounds there

02:46are about 50 free vantage points that the city of sydney looks after and there are a couple on the

02:50northern side of the bridge some of those you have to pay for a ticket though um those do as we've

02:55seen from previous years they fill up very quickly so the advice to people who are looking to brave it

03:00out and go out into the city is to check the city of sydney website they'll have live updates on

03:04how quickly those vantage points are filling up and when they've reached capacity the other general

03:09advice i think for anyone who's going out there the organizers say leave the car at home take public

03:14transport because there'll be a lot of road closures and there'll of course be huge crowds so

03:18essentially plan ahead and and utilize the sort of facilities they put on for us yeah good advice

03:25you'd be crazy to drive into the city on new year's eve riannon solomon maron thank you so much

03:30thanks ruby

03:32you

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