Vegas Strip to hold New Year's fireworks after 2020 hiaitus

Fireworks are returning to the Las Vegas Strip on New Year’s Eve with a theme pointed toward 2022 — Deuces Wild

New Year's Eve Vegas (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Fireworks that were called off last year due to the coronavirus pandemic are returning to the Las Vegas Strip on New Year’s Eve with a theme pointed toward 2022 — Deuces Wild — and the addition of an eighth hotel-top launching place, tourism and elected officials announced Thursday.

“Aside from last year, ‘America’s Party’ has been the culminating event of the entire year for more than 20 years,” said Pat Christenson, president of Las Vegas Events, a nonprofit agency created to produce and support big events.

Thousands of revelers still congregated on casino-lined Las Vegas Boulevard last year despite the canceled fireworks. There was no mention during a news conference previewing this year's event of the possible effect of the emergence and spread in recent weeks of the omicron variant of COVID-19.

Fireworks were first held on the Strip on the last night of 2000. The display has helped make New Year’s Eve one of Las Vegas’ biggest events, drawing more than 300,000 revelers, according to tourism officials, and filling the tourism-dependent city’s more than 250,000 hotel rooms.

“Being able to host this event again is so special because it allows us to close out the year in a memorable way,” Christenson said in a statement accompanying Thursday’s announcement.

Fireworks by Grucci designs and choreographs the eight-minute pyrotechnic display from atop resort properties that last year included MGM Grand Aria, Planet Hollywood, Caesars Palace Treasure Island, Venetian and The STRAT tower. It is accompanied by a soundtrack airing on two on FM radio stations in Las Vegas.

This year the show will add Resorts World Las Vegas, which opened last June.

A Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority executive, H. Fletch Brunelle, noted that entertainers booked at various venues for New Year’s weekend include Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Maroon 5 and Usher.