Where To Celebrate New Year’s Eve 2023 In The South Bay

REDONDO BEACH, CA — With 2023 behind us, residents living in the South Bay have the opportunity to celebrate the ups and downs of the year with a bang as they welcome 2024.

Here is a look at some events happening in the South Bay:

• Andy & Renee & Hard Rain - New Year's Concert
• New Year’s Eve Night Dive 2023-24: Aquarium Of Pacific: Long Beach
• New Years Eve Long Beach NYE Bar Crawl - All Access Pass to 10+ Venues
• New Year's Eve Fireworks On Waterfront NYE 2023-24: Long Beach

Nearby the South Bay, additional events will help people ring in the new year:

• New Year’s Eve Fireworks & GLOW Party 2023: Marina Del Rey
• 2024 Classic Hollywood Roosevelt | LA New Year's Eve Party
• Westside Winter Wonderland NYE Ball 2024 at Mon Ami

In the United States, one of the most popular New Year’s Eve traditions is the dropping of the giant ball in New York City’s Times Square. Other U.S. cities have adopted iterations of the ball drop — the Chick Drop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the giant Potato Drop in Boise, Idaho, for example.

The end of one year and the beginning of another is often celebrated with the singing of “Auld Lang Syne,” a Scottish folk song whose title roughly translates to “days gone by,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica and History.com.

The history of New Year’s resolutions dates back 8,000 years to ancient Babylonians, who would make promises to return borrowed objects and pay outstanding debts at the beginning of the new year, in mid-March when they planted their crops.

According to legend, if they kept their word, pagan gods would grant them favor in the coming year. If they broke the promise, they would fall out of God’s favor, according to a history of New Year’s resolutions compiled by North Hampton Community College New Center in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Many secular New Year’s resolutions focus on imagining new, improved versions of ourselves.

The failure rate of New Year’s resolutions is about 80 percent, according to U.S. News & World Report. There are myriad reasons, but a big one is they’re made out of remorse — for gaining weight, for example — and aren’t accompanied by a shift in attitude and a plan to meet the stress and discomfort of changing a habit or condition