The largest outdoor ballroom in the world, New Year in Vienna

From mid afternoon on New Year’s Eve until the early hours of New Year’s Day, Vienna’s historic centre is transformed, with revellers dancing, partying and enjoying food and wine from around the world, dispensed at over 80 booths along the route.

By midnight, a now traditional New Year’s Eve Trail winds its way through the narrow streets, past St. Stephen’s cathedral, turning the centre into the largest ballroom in the world. After the St. Stephen’s bell, the Pummerin (Austria’s largest bell), has rung in the New Year at midnight, the revellers take their partners for a rendition of the city’s famous Blue Danube Waltz.

This year revelers will be swinging to music by the Rat Pack, including songs by Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin, at Lugeck. DJs will be playing Caribbean tunes, music from Italy and rock ’n’ roll along Kärntner Strasse, the city's main shopping street.

Entertainment comes in the form of live music, clubbing, discos, and hits from the musical and operetta stage, testimony to the fact that Vienna has gone through a metamorphosis to shake off its staid image and emerge as one of the hippest and coolest places on the planet to party.

Lovers of classical music will be able to see in the New Year in the courtyard of the House of Music, Vienna’s museum of sound. The Kursalon Hübner in City Park is putting on a New Year club night immediately followed by a hangover breakfast with the New Year’s Day Concert on several video screens.

A unique New Year’s Eve atmosphere can be enjoyed on a boat trip on the Danube, at the Imperial Ball at the Hofburg and the New Year Gala at the City Hall, as well as the luxury hotels on Ringstrasse such as the Imperial. Another possibility is a New Year trip on the Majestic Imperator ? an authentic reconstruction of Emperor Franz Joseph’s imperial railway carriage that is a veritable palace on wheels. And the Vienna State Opera will be staging its traditional performance of Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus.

For information about Vienna, visit vienna.info.