In a word, rabid maniacal unbalanced slaphappy haywire gaga nobody-home lunacy.
Simply put, it's the most hyped-up night of the year in the most hyped-up city in the world. Upwards of 300,000 people jam the Strip from Sahara Avenue to Russell Road, which is closed to traffic from 5 pm till the wee hours. (I-15 on and off ramps eastbound and westbound are also closed at Tropicana, Spring Mountain, Flamingo, and Sahara; the Harmon overpass is closed in both directions as well.)
What's been called "America's Party" for the past six years gets going a mere seven hours before the main event, as soon as the cops close Las Vegas Boulevard. The Strip gets ever more crowded as the minutes tick by and the bodies jam up. You'll find a mostly younger crowd (20s and 30s) on the Strip (the 40- and 50-something partiers tend to be inside the casinos or downtown at the Fremont Street shindig).
A five-minute $500,000 fireworks show (produced by Fireworks by Grucci) launches upwards of 40,000 shells from the top of up to 10 hotel-casinos along the four-mile-long Strip, from Mandalay Bay to the Stratosphere.
The whole event is free and no tickets are necessary, but a few caveats are definitely in order.
To begin with, you're allowed to drink on the street in Las Vegas and on this night that's the main form of entertainment. So if you're not into a huge loud obnoxious drunken crowd, this isn't the place for you.
If you are, it's strictly bring all the booze you can drink with you when you show up on the Strip. The later in the evening it gets, the more difficult it is to move around and the harder it is to buy alcohol, even if you can get to a store.
In addition, most of the casinos are jam-packed by 10 pm and they lock their doors (you have to show a hotel key to door-manning security guards, so make sure everyone in your party has a key; and get them early, because the lines at front desks for keys get ferocious after dark).
If you've been drinking beer for several hours and have to relieve the pressure on your bladder, forget about doing so inside anywhere. And it might be tough to do so outside anywhere as well. It's wall-to-wall people, which is somewhat inhibiting. And Metro police officers lurk in all the shadows where you might think to take a leak and they've been known to arrest people for urinating in public, then charge them with drunk and disorderly.
Also try to stay away from barricades and other crowd-control impediments, which can collapse in the crush. If you're leaning on or near one, you could go down with them and get hurt.
Every year, in addition, some Darwin Award candidate climbs a lightpost or the side of a building and falls to his death or electrocutes himself, sometimes taking whoever he lands on with him to the grave. So be careful about standing under fools hanging off of something right over your head.
Get ready to be mauled at midnight. The tradition is to kiss whoever's nearby as 12 o'clock arrives, so pucker up and good luck.
If you go, dress warmly. Temperatures can drop into the 30s and you'll freeze for hours standing there in the shorts and shirt sleeves you put on with the warm sun high in the sky.
Thanks to the reader who sent in some of his photographs from last year's Strip festivities, which give an excellent idea of the crowd levels, plus some wise words from personal experience that support what we report above: "Here are some shots from in front of the Aladdin last New Year's Eve. We were about 40 feet from the front door and after the fireworks, it took us about 15 minutes to get to it. Security was checking for room keys and those sho had none were turned away, causing quite a mess, since EVERYBODY wanted in. Next time I'll try for a rooftop somewhere.
"P.S. Watch out for the people with the 1/2-gallon beer mugs: They don't care where they spill it."
The other illustration is our own Big Bang poster, which uses a photograph taken by Las Vegas review-Journal photographer Jeff Scheid.
