Grand Park's New Year's Eve Party Draws Big Crowd

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Downtown's Grand Park hosted its second New Year's Eve party Wednesday, with organizers hoping to increase attendance to at least 30,000 revelers.

Last year's inaugural Grand Park N.Y.E. L.A. celebration was attended by about 25,000 people, exceeding expectations. This year's event, which started at 7 p.m. and went through 12:30 a.m., tripled the space and can handle a capacity of 50,000 people, organizers said.

KCAL9's Jasmine Viel said more than 30 food vendors were on hand.

And even hours before the party was to start, she reported revelers were already practicing the all-important midnight smooch.

Organizers said they were aiming to create a centralized place for residents of a sprawling Los Angeles to ring in the new year in the spirit of the ball-drop event at New York City's Times Square.

Three stages featured musical entertainment throughout the night from KCRW disc jockeys and artists such as Ceci Bastida, Omid Walizadeh and Dorothy, KNX 1070's Jan Stevens reported.

Interactive videos created by design studio yU+co were be displayed on the west and south side of the Los Angeles City Hall building at the foot of Grand Park. The audience got to control the display by making noise.

At 10 minutes to midnight, a countdown video showed images of day-to-day slices of Los Angeles life and landmarks on the side of City Hall.

Organizers encouraged participants to take selfie photos in front of the digital displays and post them on social media using the hashtag #grandparkselfie. Instagram users can tag their photos of the event using #LAStory to submit them to be displayed on the side of the Hall of Records building.

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