4 | DECEMBER 31, 2021 - JANUARY 6, 2 | WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM
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Remembering First Night Worcester on what would have been its 40th year Richard Duckett Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
Five years ago on New Year’s Eve, 2016, First Night Worcester celebrated its “35th Anniversary Spectacular.” The event got underway outdoors at Institute Park at the Levenson Concert Stage with opening remarks by Worcester Mayor Joseph M. Petty followed by a performance by Sasha the Fire Gypsy. Although First Night Worcester was not exactly the large-scale happening it had been in its heyday, the 2016 event still had more than 80 performers (rock musicians, folk singer-songwriters, country music , youth orchestras, children’s chorus, chamber music singers, theater, acrobats, psychics … ) at venues mostly in the upper Main Street, Salisbury Street and Grove Street areas of the city. And as always the event exuded plenty of charm as you saw individuals or groups of people out on sidewalks identifi able by their First Night Worcester buttons heading determinedly to the next event on their respective program lists. But as psychic mediums Deborah Livingston and Katherine Glass (a popular attraction at First Unitarian Church, 90 Main St.) may have already known, this would turn out to be the fi nal First Night Worcester. In May 2107, an announcement was made that “After careful review, we have decided the 35th would be our last event.” The then First Night Worcester Board President Kal-
The First Night 2012 procession marches down Front Street to view fi reworks in Worcester. RICK CINCLAIR/ T&G FILE PHOTO
lin Johnson said at the time, “The Board is confi dent it has reached the correct business decision, but we’ll miss setting the stage for thousands of smiling faces on New Year’s Eve.” COVID-19 last year and the sudden surge of the Omicron variant this December would probably have had a drastic impact even if it the event had continued. However, 2021 also would have been the 40th fi rst First Night Worcester.
The very fi rst First Night Worcester warmed up New Year’s Eve with performances and celebrations attended by thousands of people on Dec. 31, 1982. Over the course of 35 years, over a million people took in the activities which were a signature Worcester experience that also provided a welcome paid gig to hundreds of local performing artists. This New Year’s Eve there are a scattering of individual events scheduled to take place
around and about Worcester, all of which sound good on their own terms, but there’s nothing under an umbrella of bringing the community as a whole together. “Yes, I miss First Night Worcester,” said Charles J. Washburn, a founder of First Night Worcester and a past longtime member of the board. “It really felt like, in Worcester, we all belonged to one another.” On Dec. 31, 1975, a small
group of artists and musicians in Boston seeking to perform on stages, both indoor and outdoor, organized an artistic and cultural celebration of New Year’s Eve. First Night Boston came about, which remains the oldest First Night celebration in the country. For a long while, First Night Worcester was the second longest continuous event of its See FIRST NIGHT, Page 5
