Boston New Year’s Eve celebrations geared toward staying home

This year’s New Year’s Eve Boston celebrations are carefully calibrated to be as couch-oriented as possible — and preferably with people just in your coronavirus bubble, authorities say.

Boston’s First Night tradition will continue, albeit via livestream rather than around downtown. T.K. Skenderian of Conventures, the company that runs the nonprofit organizing Boston’s New Years Eve for the past five years, rattled off various times down to the minute when various acts will start.

“Oh, it’s been hours and hours and hours and weeks,” Skenderian said of putting the six-hour stream together out of a Seaport bunker.

The stream runs from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., warming everyone up for the final countdown of a miserable year. The First Night celebrations, which span across a couple of neighborhoods downtown, often are a great way for local artists to get some face time.

“Every year we’ve got talent from Boston and beyond,” Skenderian said, saying that’s still the case, with a wide array of musical genres, plus a figure skating program all to be streamed. “We’ve got vibrant performers who are sparkling reflection of their community.”

The blow-by-blow schedule is up on the First Night site, and the organizers in particular shouted out the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, local high-school-aged pop singer Alli Haber, Roxbury jazz collective The Makanda Project and local hip-hop up-and-comer Nancia.

People can watch NBC 10 or stream the events online Thursday night.

“It’s BYO champagne,” Skenderian quipped.

Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, speaking at a press conference Wednesday, declared “Thank God 2020 is about to be behind us,” but asked that people avoid New Years Eve parties.

“We’re asking people to be very careful — a major source of virus transmission continues to be from small gatherings,” Walsh said.

Boston Police Commissioner William Gross, joining Walsh, said he’s increasing staffing as usual for New Years Eve to deal with any “unruly parties.”

“We will be out there,” he said.

Walsh said police will give addresses of anywhere breaking COVID protocols to the city’s Inspectional Services Department, which can issue fines for gatherings that are too large.

“If need be, we will have police knocking on doors and asking people shut down,” the mayor said. “But I guarantee you, the police will be giving us those addresses to inspectional services and we’ll probably be writing violations when there’s more than 10 people in that house.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/34WCHiN