New Year’s Eve celebrations on the Las Vegas Strip have been grounded this year, with the regular fireworks displays taking place on the street, instead of having the fireworks launch from the roofs of Las Vegas Casinos, as they have in the past.
The tourist board made the decision because of fire safety issues. The rockets, streamers, and other pyrotechnics will be set off from resort parking lots, with fireworks going off at different angles, and lower heights than they did during previous years.
The fireworks display will see fireworks rising to 300 feet above the viewers, not 600 feet as they did last year. According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the change was recommended by the Clark County fire department.
“It will be closer to them, but whoever wants to watch it, you’ll have to be at the Strip at those locations and down on Fremont Street to actually get a great view of the fireworks” explained Vince Alberta, a spokesman for the Visitors Authority.
According to County Spokesman Dan Kulin, rooftop fireworks displays were not explicitly forbidden, but the county had added a requirement for a third party inspection of launch sites. “To put it simply, we are always looking for ways to make things even safer in Clark County, and so we adopted this even stricter standard," he said. "It would be inappropriate for us to speak to a private party's decision, but obviously this inspection would take some time and could carry a significant cost."
Officials expect 250,000 people to attend this year’s fireworks display, which will last for eight minutes, eight seconds, and include 30,000 fireworks – of which 9,800 will be fired off during the 44 second finale.
Email this page
Print this page
Bookmark with del.icio.us
