800,000 visitors on Vienna’s busy New Year’s Eve trail

Spread the love

Read Time:2 Minute, 9 Second

Over 800,000 visitors celebrated the New Year on Wednesday night at the Vienna New Year’s Eve Trail. The City of Vienna Marketing drew a positive conclusion at the end of the event at 2.00 am. There were no incidents worth mentioning; the guests’ mood was consistently good, and the situation along the eight stages was calm. In response to an APA inquiry, the police also spoke of calm celebrations.
Tuesday was a huge rush to the Vienna New Year’s Eve Trail. At around 11.40 p.m., the entire event area was closed to further guests because it had reached full capacity, according to a press release. Before this, all 40 upstream security barriers in the city center, where seven of the eight stages are located, were put into operation.

“The organizer asks all revellers who are only now making their way to the stages along the New Year’s Eve path to stop going to them and stay away from the event,” said Stadt Wien Marketing. The flow of visitors in the city center was already so great that Wiener Linien closed the Stephansplatz subway station for safety reasons. Trains on the U1 and U3 lines no longer stopped there.

The celebratory mood in the city since the afternoon
Since 2 p.m. on Tuesday, the stages of Freyung, Am Hof, Graben, Stephansplatz, Kärntner Straße and Neuer Markt have attracted visitors with more than 100 hours of free entertainment across all genres. The locations Wintermarkt am Riesenradplatz in the Prater and Rathausplatz—the largest of the eight stages—started the program at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., respectively.

Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) visited the operations and security center early afternoon and thanked the forces. The New Year’s Eve Trail has been visited by around 800,000 revellers in previous years and takes place under high-security measures. The threat level remains high, even if there are currently no concrete indications, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Special units and task forces were deployed in a similar way to those seen at the Christmas markets. Still, civilian investigators and new technical means, such as drones, were also used.

To mark the start of the Johann Strauss year on the occasion of the composer’s 200th birthday, the “Danube Waltz” was a must. Ankathie Koi and Max Mutzke performed a new arrangement of the classic hit by and with star percussionist Martin Grubinger live on Rathausplatz after midnight, supported by a 100-piece super band and using a text by Tex Rubinowitz.