Category: 2015

More than 1.6 million people gather around Sydney Harbour every year to see the globally renowned Sydney New Year’s Eve fireworks display. As the 3rd coin in the Sydney New Year’s Eve Coin Series, the Royal Australian Mint has again worked with the City Of Sydney to depict the City Of Colour, during that iconic memorable midnight moment on this 2016 $1 Coloured Fine Silver Frosted Uncirculated Coin.

Sydney is bursting with colour that attracts people throughout the world to visit and explore its diverse environment. With iconic beaches, a glorious harbour, unique flora and fauna, beautiful landscapes with colour to be seen and music to be heard throughout, a unique culture of diversity and creativity, Sydney’s colourful qualities are beautifully reflected in its world-renowned New Year’s Eve celebrations. With a mintage of 5000, this 1/2 an ounce 99.9% silver coin with a diameter of 35.89mm is a fantastic souvenir to keep of this year’s event.

Orders are dispatched after the release date of 2 November 2015.

Go to the Royal Australian Mint’s new release section to view and order now. Price: AUD$60 (Australia) and AUD$54.55 (International).

Minister For Roads, Duncan Gay, today encouraged New South Wales residents to enter the Roads & Maritime Services New Year’s Eve competition and try their luck winning tickets to celebrate the start of 2016 from one of Sydney’s best vantage points above Circular Quay.

“New Year’s Eve is only 65 days away so now is the perfect time to make plans for what is always a spectacular night on the Cahill Expressway by the Harbour” Mr Gay said.

“This is a hugely popular competition & we receive thousands of entries from across the state each year – so get in fast to make sure you don’t miss out.”

“Enter and have a chance to share a spectacular New Year’s Eve to remember with your family & friends” Mr Gay said.

Entrants go into the draw to win 1 of nearly 1700 family passes to watch either the 9pm Family or Midnight Fireworks displays.

Every winner receives a family pass of 5 tickets to share with family & friends.

The lucky winners will get the privilege to enjoy the fun & family-friendly atmosphere with a range of pre-fireworks entertainment.

Entries close at 11:59pm on Friday 27 November.

For your chance to win, visit www.rms.nsw.gov.au/NYE.

The Cahill Expressway is a specially designated family area & entry is by ticket only. Entries are restricted to 1 entry per household.

Despite two controversial broadcasts in a row, the ABC has been awarded the TV broadcast rights for this year’s Sydney NYE event.

This, along with this year’s Sydney NYE theme, ‘City Of Colour’, was confirmed following the release of details of an ABC3 ‘Design Your Own Firework‘ Competition:

The ABC first broadcasted Sydney’s NYE celebrations in the 1970’s in 4-hour broadcasts but that was back when the event was more of a music concert. Fast forward to 2013 and the ABC surprisingly got the rights of the now high-profile event for the 2013 & 2014 events.

They took the ambitious step of returning the event to 4-hour broadcasts for the first time in nearly 30 years despite no time-consuming TV-quality scheduled Sydney Harbour entertainment in the 3 hour gap between 9pm and Midnight so ABC resorted to their own entertainment choices.

As an event watched by 1 billion people worldwide, it is a given that it rates well on TV so despite 2 years of ratings success, ABC’s entertainment choices for the night have not been so good and over time, did not improve but got worse. Immediately after both broadcasts, speculation on the next broadcast rights holder begun. Here is where they went wrong:

2013

• Offensive & insensitive comments
• Rushed 9pm Family Fireworks countdown – have to be on time.
• Hosts seemed to be influenced by alcohol
• Long interviews
• Dull quizzes with guests
• Concerns that the broadcast was politicised

2014

• Constant repetition of the ‘ABC Budget Cut’ joke – once would have been enough
• Concerns that the broadcast was politicised
• Little but some coverage of the Acknowledgement Of Country ceremony (At least they showed some – Channel 9 ignored the ceremony completely between 2009 & 2012. Channel Ten & ABC showed it in full in 2008 & 2013)
• No 9pm Family Fireworks countdown this time – who does not like the countdown?
• The ‘Pub Quiz’ broadcast – an expansion of the guest quiz from the previous broadcast – great idea for a game show but not for NYE entertainment.
• Long interviews
• A 15-minute segment dedicated to the negatives of NYE
• Bad camera work and technical issues (excluding the drone usage – that was something new remember)
• And finally something that all media outlets missed, delayed footage of the 9pm Family Fireworks inserted into the live Midnight Fireworks.

Of course, the 2014 broadcast was summed up in it’s conclusion when host Julia Zemiro infamously said: “Oh, thank god” after the credits started rolling.

The broadcast isn’t shown internationally except the fireworks segments. In 2013, the post-10:30pm broadcast was shown to Asia & Oceania. Ironically, the Telstra YouTube broadcast of the event, which is shown internationally, was extremely well produced with continuously entertaining musical performances from high-profile artists, short interviews with those artists and YouTube personalities & more complete coverage of activities on Sydney Harbour. One downside of the YouTube broadcast though is that the official fireworks soundtrack is not broadcast due to copyright reasons.

Sydney NYE broadcasts are not new to controversy but 2 controversial broadcasts in a row was unprecedented. NYE1979 saw drunken crowd behaviour on live TV climaxing with The Angels’ frontman, Doc Neeson, being hit in the head and thus injured by a large object thrown by someone in the crowd. NYE2006 saw a Channel Ten broadcast which was clearly deemed ‘not family friendly’ and NYE2009 was more of a Channel 9 promo.

The TV rights went up for grabs again in April this year and instead of the usual tender process of the past 6 years, the City Of Sydney returned to sponsorship agreements (a practice they did between 1996 & 2008) and as we now know, ABC signed it. We understand it is a 1-year minimum contract.

Details and duration of the Sydney NYE2015 TV broadcast have not been revealed as yet but the 9pm Family Fireworks & the ABC3 ‘Design Your Own Firework‘ Competition winners have been confirmed as features of the broadcast. The Midnight Fireworks, whilst not confirmed, are all but guaranteed.

ABC is a professional television broadcaster and expectations of them are high. They can deliver but with the past 2 Sydney NYE broadcasts they have gotten it disastrously wrong. Hopefully when details are released, the program is different and entertaining even if it is 4 hours long. A 3rd chance is usually the limit – they have got to get it right or at least significantly improve.

ABC has been contacted for comment. No response was received.

Since the theme has been confirmed, our ‘Guess The Bridge Effect’ section has now opened up again. All that is left to be announced is the Creative Ambassador. With the theme ‘City Of Colour’, it could be a famous, bright & colourful Sydneysider. Can you guess who it will be? We’ll just have to wait & see.

The City of Sydney will partner with a major charity for its’ biggest 2015/2016 event to raise awareness and funds for work to reduce housing poverty.

The official charity partner is: Habitat for Humanity Australia (Sydney New Year’s Eve 2015)

The partnership will provide the charity with a range of opportunities to promote their cause through activities such as media broadcasts, merchandise sales, donation collections, social media, and entertainment at the event.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the City’s affiliation with the charity would encourage the huge number of visitors to the event to reflect on the broader needs of the community while enjoying the celebrations.

“The City hosts some of Australia’s most successful events, and we want to make the most of the enormous publicity they create to let people know about the incredible work of our charity partners,” the Lord Mayor said.

“More than 1.6 million people attend this event and almost a billion people are reached through the media, providing a great opportunity to remind everyone about this worthy cause.”

“The City strongly supports the work of Habitat for Humanity Australia and we’re very proud to join forces with them for our biggest event over the next 6 months.”

One of the world’s leading providers of safe and affordable housing, Habitat for Humanity, will partner with the City for its’ Sydney New Year’s Eve celebration. The partnership will provide the charity with a platform to engage Sydneysiders to take action combating housing poverty across the Asia-Pacific region.

For the last 11 years, Sydney New Year’s Eve has supported 8 charities and helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for a variety of causes.

These include organisations dedicated to helping alleviate poverty, treating and preventing blindness, environmental conservation and humanitarian engineering.

Media Release: City Of Sydney