It’s the day before the big night and it’s a busy one on the barge by the Main Street docks as a small team of technicians fine tunes the pyrotechnics.
“We’ve definitely got a lot of shells and and some cakes, Roman candles,” said Brian Oberquell, a pyrotechnician with Archangel Fireworks.
He said there about 1,000 fireworks–enough to put on an 11-minute show–lighting up the night sky over downtown Vancouver.
“Oh, I’m definitely looking forward to it. It’s really great to be able to have New Year’s Eve fireworks in Vancouver again,” said Oberquell.
It’s expected 15,000 people will be making their way down town to the Vancouver Convention Centre for the big outdoor celebration tomorrow. The show is being organized by the Vancouver New Year’s Eve Celebration Society — a team of volunteers who say they’ve been trying for years to make this happen. In the past, their biggest challenge has been money.
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“We had a funding gap and rather than doing an event that was half-baked and wouldn’t meet the expectations of the Vancouver population, we just felt let’s postpone and regroup and that’s what we did,” said Charles Gauthier, the society’s volunteer president.
In the end, they managed to come up with the $300,000 needed — with a third of the funds coming from the City of Vancouver.
It’s been more than 10 years since Vancouver has seen a public outdoor celebration like this and the first time in a long time for Vancouver Police. There will be a lot more officers patrolling the streets tomorrow night, though the force wouldn’t say exactly how many. VPD spokesperson Sgt. Randy Fincham said they’ll be ready for everything from potential terror threats to unruly crowds.
“We’re very hopeful that people will come down with the right intentions, coming down to enjoy themselves, coming down to enjoy everybody’s company. We’d hate to see something happen tonight that would deter another event or another community gathering that would take place in the future,” Fincham said.
Organizers hope to make this an annual event.
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