Fireworks ushering out 2021 at the showgrounds in Hastings ahead of a welcome to the new year. Photo / Paul Taylor
Fireworks ushering out 2021 at the showgrounds in Hastings ahead of a welcome to the new year. Photo / Paul Taylor
Hawke's Bay, along with the rest of New Zealand, appears to have had its quietest New Year's Eve in many years.
With Napier's New Year's Eve Marine Parade Soundshell celebration cancelled because of the limitations on crowds to prevent super-spread of the virus, the major public event was at theHawke's Bay Showgrounds in Hawke's Bay, including a fireworks display associated with the nightly Fiesta of Lights.
Traffic and people were able to be move freely on the Marine Parade and the CBD, where roads had been traditionally closed to vehicles on New Year's Eve each year since the public celebrations were revived for the welcome to the new millennium on the night of December 31, 1999.
Thus there was no sign of the congestion usually created by up to 20,000 people milling in the area, or the mayhem which had in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in the cancellation of the city's public New Year's Eve festivities.
Despite the ideal night-out conditions, numbers out in the open were also not at the levels expected at coastal areas such as Waimarama and Mahia.
One police officer on patrol in Napier early on Saturday morning reckoned there'd been a lack of "drunk people", and on Sunday Senior Sergeant Andrew Knox observed the number of people in police custody, almost all for non-weekend activity, appeared lower than some average weekends.
