‘New format’ involves the crowd
WHAT: First Night Whistler
WHERE: Town Plaza
WHEN: Dec. 31 @ 6:15 p.m.
An all out effort by community organizers in Whistler has some seven hours of New Year’s Eve activities in Whistler’s Village North planned down to minute detail for families who wish to celebrate the new year without the help of any alcohol.
And a New Year’s Eve Fairy will be on hand to make sure wishes come true for participants and the Whistler First Night Task Force. That one wish? That "rowdyism and drunkenness" will not play a part in the new interactive entertainment format.
Organizers are expecting between 15,000 and 20,000 people to flood the Town Plaza location in Village North, which most have concluded is much more conducive to an event involving large crowds. The Town Plaza Gazebo is situated in the centre of a plaza that has wide access on four sides and is designed as a performance area.
Whistler’s Village Square, on the other hand, has proven in the past to congest rapidly and lead to problems with loitering teens.
In the new format, revellers in Whistler will not be forced to stand around in sub-zero temperatures watching a dance band. Instead, Participation Stations will provide folk arts and crafts workshops where people can make new year’s resolution art pieces. Another tent will be the venue for the parade creativity centre, in preparation for the 9 p.m. New Year’s Processional Parade through part of the village, and another tent will be focussing primarily on the age-old but tricky craft of juggling.
The size of the designated celebration area in Village North stretches hundreds of metres from the Ted Nebbeling foot bridge crossing Village Gate Boulevard, to the Amenity Bridge near The Brew House. The Town Plaza is directly at the centre of the celebration.
Although stages will play a smaller role this New Year’s Eve in Whistler, tried and true individual performers will animate the area with a variety of circus-like skills. Your juggling teachers for the evening will be the familiar Whistler entertainer Mike Battie, a.k.a. the Broccoli Man, and the comic cum daredevil Checkerboard Guy. Both of these resourceful performers promise to teach and display "gravity defying juggling" in addition to the standard feet-on-the-ground variety.
To increase the spirit of the new family format theme, award winning entertainers such as Bing Jenson will perform his infectious, high energy songs that have proven to be a big hit with children. The Noodle Brothers, also a Whistler favourite, will be close to the action with their interpretation of the Human Jukebox. This pair will dare anyone to name a song they don’t know, because, they claim to know every song ever composed. An all-girl trio called Moodswings, led by blues singer Joani Bye, will impress the throngs with sweet three-part harmonies in a wandering minstrel way.
First Night might experience some growing pains as it moves locations, and will have the area in Village North gated to mark the area of celebration. The evening is a ticketed event, so security and local volunteers will be in place to prevent gate crashers and intoxicated people from entering the site.
If a First Night Ice Carnival sounds good to you, then you’ll want to look into the free shuttles leaving the Town Plaza for the Meadow Park Sports Centre. A bus-loop is located near Zeuski’s Taverna, just steps away from the Town Plaza. With careful planning, energetic First Night participants might consider doing the Ice Carnival and the village throughout the course of the evening.
To complement the music and the participation stations, other comical and novel entertainers will have a high-profile. In recent months, long time local Michele Bush has been perfecting her comedy routine, and organizers have seen fit to include her act in First Night. Bush will be costumed as her alter-ego Dusty-Lush Cougar and the host of Trivia 2000, a wandering game-show taking place on the strolls of Village North. Bush will be assisted by her sidekick Skippy Chinstrong.
The strolls in Village North are twice as wide as the old village, making the appearance of seven-foot tall Norwegian trolls a manageable and memorable experience. The trolls will do their best to teach some folk dances to restless revellers.
This new First Night format, produced by Tourism Whistler and the Resort Municipality of Whistler, is being co-ordinated by Douglas and Associates, consisting mainly of Maureen Douglas and Tracey Cochrane. Douglas said she’s hoping more locals will embrace the new format, especially because of the elimination of alcohol. But the new location and format designed to engage and entertain thousands of visitors is in its infancy, so a charitable attitude will help.
To purchase tickets to First Night Whistler 2001, call the Whistler Activity Centre at (604) 932-2394, or direct from Vancouver at 664-5624. Admission costs are $15 for single tickets or $30 for families.
In-bound village bus service will be limited later in the evening, and RCMP will have road checks looking for drunk drivers, so organizers are suggesting you plan to get to the village early in the evening. Bus service out of the village is free and will not be affected.
