WELCOME TO THE NEW YEAR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 110, 31 December 1931, Page 6

WELCOME TO THE NEW YEAR

CLIMAX TO WEEK'S REVELS Ever since the inception of the carnival idea in Rotorua, New Year's Eve has been a night of unrestrained merrymaking and good cheer. The old year has nowhere been more vigorously sped, and the New Year nowhere more optimistically welcomed, than in Rotorua — a holiday town in true holiday mood. To-night's • New Year celebrations however, promise to outshine anything which has previously been attempted, and the dying hours of the old year will reeeive a very fitting farewell from the thousands who have no cause to lament its passing. To-night's celebrations have been organised on a scale never previously attempted, and the merry-njaking, commencing in the afternoon, will have gained its full impetus on the last night of 1931. The previous jollifications of "carnival weelc have been leading up to the welcoming of the New Year, and nothing has been left undone to ensure that that welcome is a fitting one. To-day celebrations will commence during the afternoon, with the children's session, when a wide variety of competitions for the young folk will be decided. Prizes are offered for the best and most original children's fancy dresses, and a special feature will • be the balloon distance race, when 300 gaily coloured hydrogen filled balloons, each with tag attached, will be released over the town. Residents in the country, who pick up balloons are asked to return the tag stating where it was found, as a special prize of £1 goes to the competitor whose balloon is found furthest from Rotorua. At 8.30 p.m., commencing in the town square a grand assembly of carnival fancy costumes will be held and judging will be carried out in the very many sections for which prizes are offered. There ' are eleven different classifications of fancy dresses and the spectacle of the parade should be one of delightful variety anl colour. An hour later, at 9.30 p.m., the deeorated vehicles will assemble for judging in the Goveniment Grounds. A1J. drivers of vehicles in the different sections must repori at the Hinemoa Street entrance to the grounds at the above timo i l order that they may be directed to their stations. Hei'e again, a »Tery colourful scene will be presented, and the crowds in the stn ets will have more than sufficient to occupy their attention, before t'.e grand procession assembles for its parade of the town at 10.30 p m. At that hour, the procession will leave the grounds by the I vnces Gate entrance via Arawa Street into Tutanekai Street and lurning to the right into Amohau Street, will proeeed back to II in rmoa Street to the Grand Hotel corner, where it will turn into Fe iton Street and return to Princes Gate. Extravaganz.vs will turn o! ' into Haupapa Street which will be entirely closed to irailic beUv- en Fenton Street and Iiinemaru Street aftr 6 p.m. At 11.15 p.m. in the last h >ur of the life of the old year, the extravaganza will commenc with the funeral cortege of General de Pression, to his place ff exeeution in the Town Square. At 11.30 p m. Father Time. wif h his suite, will make their appearance and reeeive a fitting far uveil, followed by the entrance of Princess Prosperity and her he. ilds. On the stroke of midnight as the old year passes, the Prln ess will hoist the Gold Standard before the singing of Auld Lang Syne lo mark the coming of the new and the departure of the oi 1. Only those who have experu ced the carnival atmospliere of a Rotorua New Year's Eve will apr -eciate wkat is in store, and even those, have not yet experienced "he departure of a year with the celebrations which are promised to-night.