Marina Bay Singapore Countdown to feature fireworks, film, performances

SINGAPORE: The Marina Bay Singapore Countdown, which is back for the ninth year, will usher in the new year with an eight-minute fireworks display.

The countdown theme this year is “Beautiful Life”, and joint organisers of the event – Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay and the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) – said the music, fireworks, the film and performances will reflect this.

From 6pm, there will be free performances by local and international artists at the Promontory @ Marina Bay.

They include local acts like Juz-B and Chriz Tong. German DJ Ronski Speed and Malaysian singer and songwriter Namewee will also be part of the programme.

Across the Bay, at the Esplanade’s outdoor theatre, visitors will be entertained by performances such as those by local band, the Singapore Char Siew Baos.

The countdown event will also feature four short films specially commissioned by local director Kelvin Sng.

Another highlight is MediaCorp’s party at the Floating Platform. The ticketed event will also celebrate 50 years of television and will feature performances by UK boy-band ‘The Wanted’, among others. Taiwanese-American singer Wang Leehom will be there to entertain revellers.

There will also be a new fringe activity – the Marina Waterfront Bazaar – where revellers can shop for fashion accessories, toys and souvenirs at 28 booths while waiting for the countdown to begin.

Visitors can also grab some food at the nearby Downtown Bites, which will have food from the various FB outlets found at the Marina Bay Link Mall. 

A first for the countdown will be a 40-second LED display on the two Bay-facing faces of the Ocean Financial Centre. The last 10 seconds to midnight will feature the numbers 10 to one at the top of the Financial Centre for revellers to usher in the new year, together.

“Like many cities around the world which celebrate New Year’s Eve, there is this special mechanism that allows the public to gather together to countdown in unison and focus their attention in the final seconds leading to the ushering of the New Year,” said Jason Chen, director of place management at URA.

“We decided that making use of the state-of-the-art LED lighting on some of the buildings in Marina Bay will be a nice way to achieve that. This year, we decided to work with Keppel Reit to utilise the lighting on the facade of the Ocean Financial Centre to achieve that countdown mechanism.

“The inspiration for the programming of the countdown mechanism is based on the Bing Bang Theory. You will see this cosmic cauldron putting together this effect of cosmic explosions leading to the top of the building where the final 10 seconds will appear physically as numerals.” 

The music accompanying the eight-minute fireworks this year, the work of local music director Iskandar Ismail, will be familiar to many. The same piece was first heard during the 2011 countdown.

Clarence Yap, assistant director of programming at Esplande – Theatres on the Bay, said: “We wanted to celebrate somebody’s music and Iskandar is a great example of someone who has a great body of work. And we said, ‘why don’t we celebrate his music in this event?’

“We looked through the history of the music he has written and we felt that the music from 2011 really was best suited for the theme we were looking for.”

Security will also be tight and like previous years, auxiliary police will regulate the number of people entering the Bay area and its surroundings.

At a media briefing, commander of Central Police Division, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Daniel Tan, said contingency forces such as the Special Operations Command will also be on standby. 

Marina Bay Singapore Countdown to feature fireworks, film, performances