If it weren’t for a clock, and for people intent on measuring the dwindling of the old and welcoming the new, the changeover would be unremarkable and unnoticeable.
In fact, due to the size of the Earth, plenty of folk elsewhere will still be in last year as late as lunchtime on New Year’s Day here.
Breaking down a year into months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds is a technique of convenience which allows us to be more organised and feel like we can exert some pseudo-control over time and the seasons. It makes us feel more comfortable and better able to rationalise our lives on a rock hurtling around a star.
Last New Year’s Eve, Dunedin residents gathered in their thousands to see in the year.
If they were expecting a celebration with knobs on, they were to be sadly disappointed, according to a public satisfaction survey since carried out by the Dunedin City Council.
With high levels of dissatisfaction in the show, the question now is what can be done to recover things from damp squib status? "Bring back fireworks" figures strongly in the findings.
By the end of a year, after navigating all its challenges and servings of bad news and despair, people are generally ready to move on to something fresh and shiny — a new year chock-full of exciting opportunities, one in which hopefully the news will be more positive and people will be kinder to one another.
Such optimism is to be applauded, even if some of the longer-lived cynics view it as naive and the domain of the gullible.
The old year deserves to be seen off in style, thanked for the good things it brought and even perhaps thought about wistfully, for we will never be younger than we were then.
The new year should be greeted optimistically and with a certain amount of exuberance, though it’s worth remembering that alcoholic overconsumption is not essential to enjoy the occasion.
Hope for the future is why thousands of people choose to celebrate on New Year’s Eve and look forward to a decent party as the clock strikes 12.
Of the 432 responses to the council evaluation, 43.5% said they were "very dissatisfied" with the event, a music-based occasion with no fireworks nor projected light and laser displays.
A further 28.2% were "dissatisfied" or "neutral" and only 17.3% and 11% were "satisfied" and "very satisfied" respectively.
Tellingly, almost half of respondents, 48.5%, said they were unlikely to attend again, while 29.3% said they were likely to and 22.2% didn’t know. Perplexingly, the council pointed out that 69% of all responses were submitted on December 31.
Feedback to the council was pretty candid, with the event described time after time along the lines of "ending with nothing", anticlimactic or unclear.
Respondents also wanted music that was more mainstream and easy to sing and dance along with. The matter of a fireworks display, last seen at the start of 2021, dominated the feedback, with 65.8% preferring it.
A report for city councillors reinforces what those who responded said — that fireworks were to be expected and "by not acting on the public sentiment there is a risk of losing residents and visitors over the holiday period".
However, councillors last year voted down the idea of bringing back fireworks.
Robin Hood Park in the Town Belt has been proposed as the launching pad for a pyrotechnic display.
From there it is thought there will be a better view of the fireworks and it will be easier to oversee appropriate health and safety requirements.
While we no longer support individual sales of fireworks, which can cause horrific injuries, kill or frighten animals, pollute waterways and spark wildfires, an organised display on New Year’s Eve would be a welcome reintroduction.
Would it be worth the extra $45,000 the council has quoted? Fireworks are always effectively money up in smoke, but if it attracts a few thousand visitors to the city for the night then it certainly would be.
