The City Of Sydney have announced that Luna Pan will compose the Midnight Fireworks soundtrack for Sydney New Year’s Eve (NYE) 2024.
Luna Pan is a local award-winning composer who has created soundtracks for films, television, theatre, video games & World Wide Web videos.
The announcement was made on the official Sydney NYE website in November.
It comes after the City Of Sydney, for the 1st time ever, opened an Expressions Of Interest (EOI) process in mid-September for the Midnight Fireworks soundtrack composer. The EOI was not done for the upcoming Sydney NYE2024 edition but rather for mainly next year’s Sydney NYE2025 edition. It was open only to freelance experienced Australian composers.
After the EOI closed in late October, the City shortlisted interested composers before requesting a detailed proposal, including an hour-long presentation, from them. Upon receipt, the shortlisted composers will be paid AUD$2000.
For the 1st time ever, the composer is also asked to write 2 soundtracks for use in event highlight videos to be known as the ‘highlights tracks’. The first one is 30 seconds long to be used by the City Of Sydney for promotions while the 2nd one is a minute long to be used by the television broadcaster globally.
These soundtracks have a budget of a maximum AUD$60,000 & will not be made by generative artificial intelligence as stated in the proposal’s requirements.
The Sydney NYE2025 Midnight Fireworks soundtrack composer will be chosen by the 17th of January, with the soundtracks (including ‘highlights tracks’) to be produced by the 16th of June. This deadline is a few months earlier than usual. Usually it is mid-September. The only reason Sydney Spectaculars can think of for the extra 3 months is to allow the soundtrack to potentially be used for a drone show, which take up to 6 months to plan. However, Sydney Spectaculars has no indication that a drone show is being planned at this stage for Sydney NYE2025.
The unsuccessful shortlisted composers will be put on an eligibility list for Sydney NYE2026 & NYE2027 but the City Of Sydney has given no guarantee these composers will ultimately get to compose the Midnight Fireworks soundtrack for those editions.
Previous Sydney NYE composers include Iva Davies (1999), David Stanhope (2000), Hylton Mowday (2004), Nick Wood (2011), Michael Yezerski (2011), Kylie Minogue (2012), s:amplify (2011-2013), Client Liaison (2018), Damien Robinson (2019), Barkaa (2021), Dobby (2021), The Presets (2021), Salllvage (2022), Stace Cadet (2022), The SWEATS (2023), Nooky (2023-2024) & 18YOMAN (2023-2024).
Nooky & 18YOMan are composing the soundtrack for the Sydney NYE2024 Calling Country Fireworks.
Sydney NYE2024 is on 31 December 2024 to the 1st of January 2025.
Sydney Spectaculars 