Massive New Year's Eve gaffe stuns Australian revellers

The fireworks were spectacular - but something else caught reveller's eyes. Photo / Getty Images

New Year's Eve fireworks went off with a bang in Australia and around the world as revellers rang in 2019 with millions of others.

But in the Emerald city of Sydney, there was a major gaffe that those close to the Harbour Bridge could only get a glimpse of as fireworks exploded at midnight.

A lighting projection appeared on one of the pylons of the bridge that read: "Happy New Year 2018!".

The error was projected to a crowd of a million people that packed out the harbour and a billion people who saw the fireworks across the world, news.com.au reports.

View this post on Instagram

Oh no it’s 2018 again #typo

A post shared by Izzy Erskine (@izskies) on Dec 31, 2018 at 5:41am PST

Social media users who spotted the typo took to Twitter and Reddit to share it with others.

News Corp Australia has contacted the City of Sydney for comment.

Happy New Year 2019. @sydney ; is it typo error? pic.twitter.com/95vhOcNaWo

— Dr Gyanendra Regmi (@Gyanendra_Regmi) December 31, 2018

Earlier, thunderstorms lashed Sydney and drenched New Year's Eve crowds, but the weather cleared for spectacular fireworks to light up the harbour.

Popular vantage points closed off early as hundreds of thousands of revellers counted down to the city's party.

A record amount of pyrotechnics as well as new fireworks effects and colours lit up the skyline for 12 minutes and dazzled the more than 1.5 million spectators who packed the harbour front and parks.

More than 8.5 tonnes of fireworks comprising more than 100,000 individual effects, 35,000 of them shooting comets, were fired over the harbour by midnight.