Fireworks will light up countdown to New Year’s

Dan Kulin

Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2004 | 9:23 a.m.

New Year's Eve on the Las Vegas Strip will feature a unique countdown to midnight with the numbers 10 through 1 appearing in bright fireworks above four hotels during the final seconds of 2004, fireworks company officials announced Tuesday.

The fireworks countdown -- billed as a first ever in fireworks -- will be followed by a roughly eight-minute fireworks show launched from 10 hotel rooftops.

A light and laser show will also bring in 2005 and launch the beginning of the yearlong Las Vegas centennial celebration.

The fireworks and laser show, with a combined cost of $600,000, will be accompanied by new song called "LV" specially written for the New Year's event by Harrah's headliner Clint Holmes and Pat Caddick, and possibly a flyover by a B-1 bomber, event officials said.

Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman praised the coming visual spectacle during a Tuesday unveiling of the fireworks plan at the Fashion Show mall. Both said they expect this year's New Year's celebration to be bigger and better than ever.

"And there's only another 31 days until it happens," Goodman said.

The mayor said the fireworks show will be "bigger, better and more incredible than ever before," and ring in the city's centennial celebration -- marking 100 years since the May 1905 land auction that laid the groundwork for modern-day Las Vegas.

Donna Grucci Butler, president of Fireworks by Grucci, said her staff has been working on the Las Vegas New Year's show for more than a year.

"For us it's like a dream come true," she said.

Butler, whose company also will be doing the fireworks for the New Year's celebrations in New York City's Times Square and at the Statue of Liberty, said the Las Vegas fireworks show is easily the largest in the country.

"Las Vegas is nine times bigger than anywhere else," she said.

The fireworks countdown developed by the company, called the Rumble Digit countdown, is one of the new fireworks features the company will bring to Las Vegas. The company will also fire off 100 silver and gold "Las Vegas Centennial Chip" fireworks just before the finale.

Butler said the fireworks will travel as high as 300 feet above the hotel roofs, and the best view will be from the middle of the street.

Pat Christenson, president of event co-producer Las Vegas Events, said that while an all-encompassing view of the fireworks is best caught off the Strip, those watching from the Strip will be treated to fireworks that appear to "burst right above you."

About 300,000 visitors are expected for the New Year's Eve celebration dubbed America's Party, and they'll leave about $180 million in Las Vegas, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President Rossi Ralenkotter said.

This year's fireworks show is $500,000, which is the same price for the fireworks at last year's event, Christenson said. That money comes from the LVCVA, which receives its funding from the room tax and leases for properties it owns.

The additional $100,000 to pay for the laser and light show, the special song, and confetti cannons along the Strip, comes from the Las Vegas Centennial Committee, which receives its funding through proceeds from the centennial commemorative license plates, plus private donations.

The LVCVA is also footing the $203,700 bill for the Las Vegas float in the New Year's Day Rose Parade in California.