New Year’s Eve events in Boston to ring in 2023
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Karan Casey, left, and Mark Pelletier of the Puppeteers Cooperative in Copley Square for First Night in 2019. Photo: Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
New Year's Eve is still two weeks away, but we have your rundown of what events to check out to ring in 2023.
First Night returns with all the ice sculptures, fun and fireworks you could ask for on a January night.
- As usual, Copley Square is the main venue, with other events popping up on the Common and along Boylston Street.
- The festivities begin at noon and the last musical acts are set to finish around 30 minutes after the midnight fireworks start.
Highlights:
- Traditional Chinese folk dance with the Chu Ling Dance Academy throughout the day.
- Jazz from the Alex Minasian Trio at noon.
- Sweet Harmony with a musical act spanning styles through the decades, also at noon.
- The Museum of African American History and Handel and Haydn Society present an ode to Boston's role in the emancipation movement with the Emancipation Proclamation Concert at 1pm.
- The Pipes and Pops concert brings brass and percussion players to perform classics and of course, an "Auld Lang Syne" sing-along.
Details: The opening ceremony and parade kick off at 5:50pm.
- Family fireworks for children and those that just don't feel like staying up until midnight are on the Common at 7:01pm.
A countdown to the midnight Copley Square fireworks starts at 7:30pm.
- The Sultans promise "songs you know in a city you love" at 11:30pm.
- The Friends of Christopher Columbus Park present another midnight fireworks display over the harbor.
- Singer LaQuandra Seymore performs at midnight at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square
Yes, but: If the crowds at Copley aren't your thing, here a few other options for Saturday:
- The Friends of the Harborwalk will host a historical tour of the Wharf District at 1pm.
- The Mandarin Oriental hotel is hosting a free jazz concert in the hotel lobby with an accompanying champagne and wine bar from 4pm to 7pm Saturday night.
- Big Night Live has a lineup of DJs and artists as part of Zoo Year's Eve with Costa.
- Mamma Mia Drag Dinner at the Summer Shack at 6pm.
- The Crawl 'Til The Ball Falls bar crawl is sure to be a good time. It starts at Sidebar at 6pm.
- City Tap in Fort Point hosts "The Monroe Disco," a 1970s dance party with glitter-laced champagne and disco balls a-go-go.
One thing that won't be dropping is Whitman's giant Toll House Cookie that's been in mothballs for nearly a decade.