Major cities across the world celebrated the beginning of 2014 with fireworks and music, ringing in the new year with record setting celebrations and good spirit.
About a million New York City revelers braved frigid temperatures and high security, waiting hours in Times Square for a giant Waterford crystal ball to drop at the stroke of midnight.
With neither the current nor the incoming New York City mayor present to push the button to start the ball drop, the honors were performed by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a New York native.
In Pasadena, California, people celebrated the stroke of midnight while camped out on the street along the route for the annual Rose Parade. The parade is followed Wednesday by the Rose Bowl, one of several post-season college football games played on New Year.
330,000 people packed the World famous Las Vegas Strip to celebrate New Year’s Eve, one of the biggest events in Las Vegas.
For most of the businesses on the famous Las Vegas Strip, this is the biggest night of the year and it has a deadline. The Strip closed to vehicle traffic at around 6 p.m.
Las Vegas is securing its place on the list of the top places to ring in the new year with celebrity-studded bashes, exclusive concerts and a fireworks display billed as the country’s largest.
An eight-minute fireworks display from the rooftops of seven hotel-casinos marked the start of the new year.
Big-ticket musical acts including Ne-Yo, Britney Spears, Bruno Mars, John Legend and Maroon 5 helped lure visitors to Las Vegas.
Elsewhere, crowds gathered in public spaces around the world to ring in the new year, massing in Moscow, Dubai, London and other major cities ahead of their midnight celebrations.
London’s partiers were treated to edible banana-flavored confetti as they watched fireworks over Trafalgar Square.
Dubai created what it called the world’s fireworks show, igniting 400,000 fireworks that aimed to set a new world record, besting last year’s record of 77,000 in Kuwait.
Fireworks erupted from Auckland’s Sky Tower as people danced in the streets of New Zealand’s biggest city.
In Sydney, Australia, more than a million people watched fireworks launched for the first time in more than a decade from the sails of the city’s famed waterfront opera house. Billowing fireworks soared over Hong Kong’s skyscrapers.
In Japan, some celebrated by eating noodles and seafood — thought to bring good luck in 2014 — and offering prayers at Buddhist shrines and temples.
Marianna Szoke / Las Vegas, NV
