About First Night Council Bluffs

First Night Celebrations offer a wide variety of artists with a broad range of appeal. They are held in both indoor and outdoor venues in close proximity to each other. Affordable admissions Buttons provide entry to all First Night performances.

New Year's Eve is a time for renewal and new beginnings. It is an opportunity for the community to look ahead collectively with hope and optimism and appreciate their common bonds. The name "First Night" symbolizes this look forward rather than the technically correct words, "Last Night."

Each First Night Celebration is identified by the date of the New Year the event welcomes. For example, First Night 2010 will be celebrated on December 31, 2009. All cities that host a First Night Celebration observe this guideline.

First Night Council Bluffs is a unique experience, with local venue, artists, performers and vendors celebrating our unique culture and history. We will again focus this year's activities around Bayliss Park, and historic downtown such as City Hall, Union Pacific Railroad Museum, the Masonic Temple, and more.

The Four Pillars

Community, Celebration, the New Year, and Art!

• Community
  First Night provides a strong vehicle to recreate the sense of community most of our cities have lost, and offers the potential of strengthening communal ties and of uniting people. It helps people rediscover their city, learn about diverse cultures and get acquainted with old traditions. First Night is an occasion to celebrate ourselves, to reflect upon our cultural diversity and the beauty of our city.
  
  At First Night, the arts take front and center stage in the life of the city. In preparation of the event, artists involve members of the community in innovative projects and pageantry, as well as create works that invite public participation and interaction during the festival.

• Celebration
  First Night is a Celebration. It is a fun, participatory, event that brings people together, through the arts, in a shared celebration of the New Year. It is a celebration that marks a special moment in time, but it is also a celebration of community, the arts, spirit, creativity, diversity and shared dreams and goals.
  
  And First Night is a celebration of the city itself. The city can get all dressed up and local artists transform the traditional urban landscape into their canvas. First Night's stage is the city center, where members of the suburban and urban communities come together in festivity. The events location, in the heart of the city, offers a safe, festive route that is transformed into a spectacle of light, sound and compelling imagery.

• The New Year
  First Night is a celebration of the New Year. It marks the passage of time from the old year to the new each December 31st. It derives its strength from the human capacity to make new beginnings. New beginnings bring hope. First Night sets in motion our hopes for the future both individually and collectively as a community.
  
  As a time-specific festival, First Night incorporates rituals and thematic elements unique and appropriate to this passage. At the stroke of midnight, our spirits soar high as we welcome the New Year with family and friends. We return home with a renewed sense of communal pride and feelings of appreciation, participation and discovery. Remembering our uncommon experience, we look forward to this annual ritual.

• The Arts
  First Night is an invention of artists and it is their trust in the power of the arts to bring about communal harmony that distinguishes this particular celebration from other civic events. The arts play an important role in First Night because of their capacity to transform, to inspire, to enrich and to engage. They transcend boundaries of race, age, gender and social status.
  
  First Night provides a platform for musicians, poets, storytellers, dancers, actors, puppeteers and visual and media artists to showcase the city's cultural landscape. This is the time to bring the rich variety of arts to all the people in the community.