Hundreds of thousands of revellers packed both sides of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour for a fireworks display on New Year’s Eve, as they expressed hopes for health and happiness in 2025.
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By 9pm, celebrations across the city had drawn more than 143,000 visitors, of whom 108,000, or 75 per cent, were from mainland China. The number of mainland visitors was only about half of the 195,888 for the previous New Year’s Eve, a Sunday, when 227,000 non-local arrivals were recorded.
Themed “The Symphony of Happiness”, the countdown celebration began at 11pm with four sets of fireworks and a star-studded musical and dance performance, before the main 12-minute display started at midnight.
From 11pm, fireworks in the shape of “shooting stars” were launched every 15 minutes from three buildings on Hong Kong Island, leaving revellers in awe.
Cantopop boy band Mirror, girl group Collar and Canadian pop music duo Crash Adams performed on the viewing deck of the Cultural Centre.
The fireworks, choreographed by Liu Lin, who oversaw the display for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, took inspiration from the five natural elements in Chinese culture – fire, earth, wood, water and metal.
Authorities earlier predicted 380,000 people would gather in Tsim Sha Tsui for the show, a crowd similar in size to last year’s.