What You'll Get
New Year's Eve is better with an easily attainable resolution for 2011, perhaps "Stay awake until midnight," "Eat more pie," or "Finally kick out the monkey living in our garage." Celebrate your future triumphs with today's Groupon: for $12, you get two adult tickets to First Night Hartford 2011 (a $20 value), which takes place from 2 p.m. to midnight on December 31 in downtown Hartford.
A family-friendly, alcohol-free alternative to traditional New Year's Eve celebrations, the 22nd annual First Night Hartford is a daylong arts and entertainment festival to party into 2011 in style. The festivities start with Kid's Fest at the Old State House, where children can make New Year's noisemakers and get their faces painted, and they continue throughout the day with an array of performances and workshops. Find out which '90s boy band will assume control of an Eastern European country in 2011 with a tarot card reading, take the kids to hear heartwarming winter tales at the library, or watch a Middle Eastern belly-dancing performance at City Hall. The night culminates with the big countdown and a fireworks show in Bushnell Park at midnight, when 2011 will be ushered in with grand style.
Reviews
NBC Connecticut reviewed last year's First Night celebration:
- It was a time to kiss goodbye to 2009 and celebrate the New Year, new decade and new friends. Outside, fireworks and 2010 light up glasses illuminated the night sky. The snow just wasn’t enough to keep the true revelers away. – Monica Buchanan, NBC Connecticut
The Fine Print
Promotional value expires Jan 1, 2011. Amount paid never expires. Limit 1 per person, may buy 1 additional as a gift; gift must be presented by someone other than buyer. Not valid until 12/28/10. Tax not included. Not valid with any other offers. Merchant is solely responsible to purchasers for the care and quality of the advertised goods and services.
About First Night Hartford
Every New Year's Eve, the city of Hartford celebrates the upcoming year with First Night—a one-day festival of music, art, and dance. First Nights have been celebrated across the country since 1976 in Boston. As part of these celebrations, arts organizations from across the community come to perform their works in the lead up to midnight in a family-and-friends get-together. You can hear live music and comedy and view magic, dance, and street performers. You can also ring in the new year by staying up for fireworks displays at 6 p.m. and midnight in Bushnell Park that can be seen throughout the city, but not through those binoculars you made out of leftover confetti and streamers.