Jeff and I decided to go to
Austin's First Night Celebration. We thought about 6th Street, or just having a few friends over to our house. We were also invited to Cassie's party in Houston (which I heard was really awesome) but we didn't want to drive to Houston. We heard First Night was going to have a bike parade and fireworks. I love parades and fireworks, so we decided on First Night. The festival had an art and environmental theme and it was a lot of fun.
The parade was big and had tons of butterflies.
and lots of people on stilts
these guys from Nicaragua dressed like cows
There were tons of bike floats and many of them had been made into butterflies
This was a super long caterpillar, there were 8 or 10 people riding bikes inside it.
Of course there was a bat float
There was also a huge praying mantis bike float that played music, he was really cool, but I never got a good picture. There were also lots of kids in the parade with art projects they had made in school.
At 8pm they had the kid's finale, there was a big wooden clock tower built for First Night and people pinned papers with their resolutions or memories to the tower then at 8pm they set it on fire and had a few fireworks too.
There were tons of projects, shows, bands, and activities. This was called "Regenerate: Butterfly Resolutions" it was made of twigs and cornhusks. They had cornhusk butterflies and you could write your "resolutions and wishes for our planet" on them then hang them on the twig hangers. there were thousands of cornhusk butterflies, Jeff is next to ours, it says sustainable energy.
me at Auditorium Shores with the Austin skyline in the background
We also got to see
Arc Attack. We had heard of them, but hadn't seen them yet. These guys built Tesla Coils in their garage and now they have a music show using them. Their website,
videos, and pictures don't do it justice at all. They had florescent light bulbs stuck in the ground around the coils and they kept lighting up all the time just from the energy from the coils. It looked like lightening coming out of the coils and they made noise that went along with the music. It was really cool.
The midnight fireworks were awesome! I love fireworks and these were way better than I expected.
They lasted over 20 minutes
At least 3 times I thought I had just seen the finale and they were finished, but they just kept going.
The reflections on the water were beautiful too
What an awesome way to celebrate the New Year!
these guys from Nicaragua dressed like cows
There were tons of bike floats and many of them had been made into butterflies
This was a super long caterpillar, there were 8 or 10 people riding bikes inside it.
There was also a huge praying mantis bike float that played music, he was really cool, but I never got a good picture. There were also lots of kids in the parade with art projects they had made in school.
At 8pm they had the kid's finale, there was a big wooden clock tower built for First Night and people pinned papers with their resolutions or memories to the tower then at 8pm they set it on fire and had a few fireworks too.
There were tons of projects, shows, bands, and activities. This was called "Regenerate: Butterfly Resolutions" it was made of twigs and cornhusks. They had cornhusk butterflies and you could write your "resolutions and wishes for our planet" on them then hang them on the twig hangers. there were thousands of cornhusk butterflies, Jeff is next to ours, it says sustainable energy.
me at Auditorium Shores with the Austin skyline in the background
We also got to see Arc Attack. We had heard of them, but hadn't seen them yet. These guys built Tesla Coils in their garage and now they have a music show using them. Their website, videos, and pictures don't do it justice at all. They had florescent light bulbs stuck in the ground around the coils and they kept lighting up all the time just from the energy from the coils. It looked like lightening coming out of the coils and they made noise that went along with the music. It was really cool.
The midnight fireworks were awesome! I love fireworks and these were way better than I expected.
They lasted over 20 minutes
At least 3 times I thought I had just seen the finale and they were finished, but they just kept going.
The reflections on the water were beautiful too
What an awesome way to celebrate the New Year!
4 comments:
This is Parsec from Arcattack! Thanks so much for your kind words. We were very pleased to be able to do our part in Keeping Austin Weird and we are glad to be among your host of wonderful memories.
Keep spreading the word and hopefully someday we will have plenty of local opporunity to watch us grow.
I was there!!!!! can't believe I didn't see you, okay...well, there were tons of people there.
Loved the fireworks show, it went on forever.
Happy New Years!!
That looked like so much fun. Too bad I didn't have anything like that near me.
This is Kevin from First Night Austin. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us! Putting together First Night Austin took a lot of hard work from a lot of people so it's very rewarding to hear that you had a great time.
Thank you, and I hope we'll see you again for our 5th anniversary next year!
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