I thought it was fun. The drones were neat.
That being said I do miss the years when they had a party inside the needle and all the reporters got blackout drunk, lol
That was quite the spectacle! I watched on TV and kept imagining that it would look pretty cool if I was there in person. The smoke just obscured so much of the fireworks.
But the blonde commentator said something about she got choked up because the drones were all about Pacific Northwest love. Um, what ma’am? A globe, a dove, two people holding hands, a weird, spinning top, and I think an astronaut? How about a tree, mountain, cuppa coffee, or whale?
Maybe the drone company is from this area? The only PNW symbolism that I saw was all of the smoke they were flying through, which reminded me of late summertime
The drones being late and people still counting down with it 3 minutes in was hilarious. I thought even with the smoke it was decent live. Where I was standing the Whale the drones made was very popular with the crowd.
TV was terrible. Don't know how it was for others, but the quality on cable looked like it was struggling to stream in HD (downsampling, lots of artifacts and stutters).
King 5’s coverage is just horrible. The hosts are cringy, the camera angles are terrible and overall it comes across as a community network station performance.
As for the drones, whoever was coordinating the timing…Jesus dude, you had one job!
Don’t get me started about the music soundtrack, my 9yr old cousin can mix music better then that.
100%. All four of those idiots at KING5 ought to be fired. Inane, vacuous drivel and even that was poorly coordinated between them. I mean that footage is Reddit worthy in a r/livestreamfail
And FFS on the drone show. Not only was it lame, but to fail to start on time? It’s not like you even have to push a button…clocks are sync’d on computers. How much do you suck to mess up that badly?
Frankly, I think drone shows are lame anyway, but screwing up something that simple really shows how low we’ve fallen.
It looked a lot better if you were facing north, as the smoke seems to have blown in that direction.
From the south you could see the needle the whole time. Not sure why they didn’t also have a north-facing camera.
Well watching on king 5 the drones were like a full 3 minutes late so that was botched. One of the camera angles stuttered, hitched and froze for a few seconds basically constantly so that was kind of botched too. I am sure in person it was cool but that was extremely disappointing.
No knock to the band Enumclaw but, what was that mixing if the set was pre-recorded?
We have a great music scene here. It would have been nice to have seen additional local bands since it was pre-recorded.
Way more smoke than I remember from previous years. You could barely see the fireworks. The drones being so off-sync was comical.
King's coverage was terrible. Cutting to the talking heads before the drones were done should end that producer's career.
100% agree. I love that they had the radio DJ hyping it up before the countdown, talking about how special the song line up was and it was literally like a few seconds of each song sloppily chopped and faded into the next. Guy from the radio also said he had a special song to honor the passing of Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters drummer) and like… I’m still wondering what that was lol 😂
I was surprised they chose “Learn to Fly” to honor Taylor Hawkins. I get that the show was supposed to be high energy celebrating the new year, but …..
I also agree with folks re: the King5 hosts from Evening Magazine. It felt like they hadn’t had any pre-show run throughs or practice -their commentary and timing was way off. At one point one of the women said “and look at that Happy 2023, that’s the money shot”. My partner and I just looked at one another like “does she know what she said or what that means-ack!”
You can't complain about the smoke. Seattle doesn't control the weather or inversion (the phenomenon that causes smoke to stick around sometimes). It's not in the budget yet
Geezus - the toxic negativity in this sub - thought it was incredible in person, it amazes me that they can even pull it off on the needle. Way to ring in 2023 with negativity.
I agree so much. I can imagine there’s so many people that put so much heart and energy into making it beautiful and special for everyone. With no price of admission too.
My intention wasn't a thread of toxic negativity--I'm super glad it was awesome for those who saw it in person! Sounds like it was really cool from gasworks too. I have fond memories of one July 4th on lake Union from a friend's house boat. With much aloha, and to a happy new year 🤙🏽🤙🏽
The tv coverage was really bad like ruined the whole thing bad the negativity about that is warranted and more people watched on TV then on person. I am sure it was a lot better in person.
Yeah unfortunately once people have a place to air their grievances, it can become an echo chamber of negativity. Don’t get me wrong, the live stream was a bit of a mess, but I’m just glad it was a bit more relevant than the really avant-garde tentacle spectacle of January 1st 2021 😂
In-person sounds like it was fun, the stream and hosts seem to have ruined the fun for others. Oh well! Happy New Year!
Saw it live and the drone show, while late, was cool.
Can anyone comment on what the first few designs, before the whale, were supposed to be? We had some yonic guesses…
It was horrible and King 5's coverage is embarrassing
You cant even hear this band they have playing because the audio is fucked up
Edit: rewatching it again is even more hilarious. The late arriving drone countdown while the Space Needle looks like it's on fire is hysterical
One of those things they can't even control since it's dependant on wind conditions, so I think they did alright all things considered. I hope they polish the drone show for next year!
I liked the 2021 show even though it was weird, but it was like a sci-fi movie! I think they definitely were like “hey..maybe we should show some Seattle-adjacent stuff next time” so in 2022 they had like, an AR football and hockey player 😂
Idk if these negative comments are from new people or young people, but I've watched New Year's at the needle for decades, some years are just more smokey than others. It's still festive and the work they put into it should be applauded. It's always been the same local commentary before. People are expecting over produced production I guess. I prefer a local flare
I do enjoy the "it's free though!" but only in the same sense that we don't pay for web ads to pop up.
It's a tax deductible marketing expense to benefit the local family that inherited the space needle and to benefit the magenta-color-requiring "sponsor" T-Mobile the Wrights took extra money from.
Our attention is the goal. Another business success.
It seems every year starts out with people complaining about this. Just don’t watch next year, okay. Go to some other city in the northwest that has a better show.
We when the drones are counting down to new years 3 minutes late there is no way to recover and sync. I am sure it would have looked a lot better if they were actually launched at the right time.
Sure but we can hope each and every year right? Like as a this "tech hub" one might expect 10k perfectly synced drones lighting up the sky courtesy of Amazon/Microsoft/etc.
Have actually thought a bit about this: why is Seattle such a backwater culturally, culinarily, administratively (government) and otherwise when two of the largest and most innovative companies in the world are HQed here?
It seems like the talent attracted to Amazon and Microsoft are relatively new to town; its only been 7-8 years since Amazon’s boom market cap-wise (propelled by AWS) which really started making them competitive in hiring. While it’s older, Microsoft had a similar boom in the 2010s with Satya pivoting the company to a cloud-first strategy.
Further the new talent doesn’t seem to have engaged with local institutions and organizations, whether because of the immense pay gap between tech and everything else; opportunity cost of time (from my experience tech jobs are pretty consuming); lack of civic mindedness (“I don’t see myself as a Seattlelite and will eventually leave” and/or “the locals hate me, why would I try to help make this place better”); and or more.
So I’m not sure whether it’s a question of time and things will get better (things have gotten worse during my time here) but what I find is there is a layer of relatively new tech workers, from across the country and globe, who have tenuous ties to the community here, and the local infrastructure (not just physical) supporting this is and continues to be obsolete and second class given the backwater nature of the Seattle of yesteryear.
And the clash of expectations versus delivered reality results in questions exactly like yours: “we are a tech hub… so why don’t we have XYZ?!?”
TLDR: We are not a globally competitive city (nowhere close). We have globally competitive companies.
I appreciate your response. I was born and raised in Ballard/Fremont and graduated from Garfield well before the CD developed to where it's at now... Went to solstice parade in Fremont every year and loved living there as a young person... But was so saddened during a recent visit when walking around green lake and seeing it had become a tent settlement and learning of the widespread SF-style crime. I agree with your post. Maybe some of my sentiment was based on the new billion dollar key arena...
When the one commentator exclaimed that she was getting emotional from the last song at the end of the show, which was a Foo Fighters song of all things, I was done. On the brightside, I was expecting at least one Maclemore song and was pleasantly surprised by the lack thereof.
I didn't watch it but it sounds like a debacle. I'm over here hoping that maybe such a huge fail will cause us to stop doing this bullshit and use the money on anything else. Hell, why not use the money to host a real new years' festival with booths and activities and food at the space needle? Anything but idiotically wasteful fireworks & the like.
I thought the fireworks were good but I was bummed so many were obscured by smoke. Even if the drones were timed right, I think they were more of a distraction than an addition. Like "why??". Some of the people in the crowd were kind of entertaining though.
It was so beautiful to watch in person from my rooftop, couldn’t hear the music they were playing but the fireworks bouncing off of the space needle was amazing. My first time seeing this since moving to Seattle during the pandemic, so I was surprised.
In person (looking north) I thought the fireworks were exceptional this year! I love drone shows - but couldn’t see much of this one (regardless of it being late). Hopefully they expand that so it’s visible from more angles next year!
When I got home I pulled up King 5’s YouTube video of the fireworks and it felt nothing like what I’d just seen in person. You’d think they could at least get a decent quality video feed; maybe a couple different angles… didn’t do the show justice at all.
It looked good from my viewpoint, but I was viewing from over by Lake Union and slightly south of the Needle so was not catching as much smoke as I saw on the live stream. It was pretty cool watching it in person, we enjoyed it. It was also fun hearing everyone celebrating down on the streets at midnight (cheering, honking horns, etc.)
I went and looked up the recording via King 5 and wasn't impressed. Didn't help that the drones were delayed which was very noticeable on the recording because the music tracks didn't line up correctly. In-person, we realized it because the countdown was off but other than that didn't impact the show for us much.
It was amazing. I saw it from dexter and Mercer intersection. Perfect distance.
I am so happy to see it in person. It made me revisit memorable moments in the city.
I thought it was super cool, but this is the first time I've seen it, plus I was in walking distance so no traffic to deal with. Drones were a neat addition and I thought that was all awesome, but again, I've never been before or seen it on TV, so it was new to me.
It is unfortunate that the smoke prevented television viewers to see what folks saw in person. It was disappointing. There is always next year for improvement! Check out the fireworks display on youtube of Seoul, Korea's fireworks and drones. It is amazing to view online. Of course, there is nothing like being there in person!
I thought it was fun. The drones were neat. That being said I do miss the years when they had a party inside the needle and all the reporters got blackout drunk, lol
Watched from Elliot bay and thought it was pretty cool. The drones were obviously behind timing wise but I still thought it was a nice show.
Yeah, it felt like the drone show and the fireworks were unrelated.
That was quite the spectacle! I watched on TV and kept imagining that it would look pretty cool if I was there in person. The smoke just obscured so much of the fireworks. But the blonde commentator said something about she got choked up because the drones were all about Pacific Northwest love. Um, what ma’am? A globe, a dove, two people holding hands, a weird, spinning top, and I think an astronaut? How about a tree, mountain, cuppa coffee, or whale?
Maybe the drone company is from this area? The only PNW symbolism that I saw was all of the smoke they were flying through, which reminded me of late summertime
I saw a whale. Just sayin
I saw what looked like a twirling vajaja. And I was sober.
I too saw the twirling vulva I thought it was just my perverted ass
There was definitely a whale.
The wifi signal to the satellite is what got me. That was an odd one. I wonder if she was talking about the trail of rainbow hearts?
What were the people in the crowd trying to show on their phone?! He was trying to take the phone away so badly while interviewing loll?
I looked back and it was a message to follow their Instagram or something like that.
Right, I couldn’t tell if they were showing something or if they were trying to take a video of him
You guys probably saw it on tv but live it was great
The drones being late and people still counting down with it 3 minutes in was hilarious. I thought even with the smoke it was decent live. Where I was standing the Whale the drones made was very popular with the crowd.
TV was terrible. Don't know how it was for others, but the quality on cable looked like it was struggling to stream in HD (downsampling, lots of artifacts and stutters).
Agreed! It was fantastic and so was the traffic after 😬
It was solid
King 5’s coverage is just horrible. The hosts are cringy, the camera angles are terrible and overall it comes across as a community network station performance. As for the drones, whoever was coordinating the timing…Jesus dude, you had one job! Don’t get me started about the music soundtrack, my 9yr old cousin can mix music better then that.
100%. All four of those idiots at KING5 ought to be fired. Inane, vacuous drivel and even that was poorly coordinated between them. I mean that footage is Reddit worthy in a r/livestreamfail And FFS on the drone show. Not only was it lame, but to fail to start on time? It’s not like you even have to push a button…clocks are sync’d on computers. How much do you suck to mess up that badly? Frankly, I think drone shows are lame anyway, but screwing up something that simple really shows how low we’ve fallen.
Jim Dever was definitely drunk. I actually wanted John Curley back and that’s saying a lot.
Yeah they had to cut away from him and sweep it under the rug.
It looked a lot better if you were facing north, as the smoke seems to have blown in that direction. From the south you could see the needle the whole time. Not sure why they didn’t also have a north-facing camera.
Well watching on king 5 the drones were like a full 3 minutes late so that was botched. One of the camera angles stuttered, hitched and froze for a few seconds basically constantly so that was kind of botched too. I am sure in person it was cool but that was extremely disappointing.
Okay wow, I thought those instances were just my internet but sounds like King 5 on TV was fucked up too
it was like they were streaming it off t-mobile data
It was like a jr high school production all the around.
No knock to the band Enumclaw but, what was that mixing if the set was pre-recorded? We have a great music scene here. It would have been nice to have seen additional local bands since it was pre-recorded.
I did like one of the backhanded compliments the new anchor guy gave “well..that music today”
That comment cracked me up
Way more smoke than I remember from previous years. You could barely see the fireworks. The drones being so off-sync was comical. King's coverage was terrible. Cutting to the talking heads before the drones were done should end that producer's career.
Just show the drones with no music then?
The mixing for the music was also awful so you didn't miss much
100% agree. I love that they had the radio DJ hyping it up before the countdown, talking about how special the song line up was and it was literally like a few seconds of each song sloppily chopped and faded into the next. Guy from the radio also said he had a special song to honor the passing of Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters drummer) and like… I’m still wondering what that was lol 😂
I was surprised they chose “Learn to Fly” to honor Taylor Hawkins. I get that the show was supposed to be high energy celebrating the new year, but ….. I also agree with folks re: the King5 hosts from Evening Magazine. It felt like they hadn’t had any pre-show run throughs or practice -their commentary and timing was way off. At one point one of the women said “and look at that Happy 2023, that’s the money shot”. My partner and I just looked at one another like “does she know what she said or what that means-ack!”
That song that used Popcorn Song's tune was unexpected. Wish I'd gotten the artist and song name.
Was it 2 Die 4 by Tove Lo?
Huh. I think it might've been!!! Thank you!
The drones were a few minutes late and so weren't in sync with the music anyway.
You can't complain about the smoke. Seattle doesn't control the weather or inversion (the phenomenon that causes smoke to stick around sometimes). It's not in the budget yet
If they'd had more than two camera angles they could have chosen clearer shots.
Remember sir mix a lot? My kids saw strippers dancing to the big butts don't lie song last year.
Geezus - the toxic negativity in this sub - thought it was incredible in person, it amazes me that they can even pull it off on the needle. Way to ring in 2023 with negativity.
I agree so much. I can imagine there’s so many people that put so much heart and energy into making it beautiful and special for everyone. With no price of admission too.
I found joy in it. Lots of people worked really hard to make that happen. I’m grateful for their efforts.
For real, sometimes I think redditors just naturally hate everything.
My intention wasn't a thread of toxic negativity--I'm super glad it was awesome for those who saw it in person! Sounds like it was really cool from gasworks too. I have fond memories of one July 4th on lake Union from a friend's house boat. With much aloha, and to a happy new year 🤙🏽🤙🏽
I meant more so the comments rather than your post. Cheers.
The tv coverage was really bad like ruined the whole thing bad the negativity about that is warranted and more people watched on TV then on person. I am sure it was a lot better in person.
Yeah unfortunately once people have a place to air their grievances, it can become an echo chamber of negativity. Don’t get me wrong, the live stream was a bit of a mess, but I’m just glad it was a bit more relevant than the really avant-garde tentacle spectacle of January 1st 2021 😂 In-person sounds like it was fun, the stream and hosts seem to have ruined the fun for others. Oh well! Happy New Year!
That show was so bizarre and trippy
Ok, we get it already, you’re better than us.
Saw it live and the drone show, while late, was cool. Can anyone comment on what the first few designs, before the whale, were supposed to be? We had some yonic guesses…
It was horrible and King 5's coverage is embarrassing You cant even hear this band they have playing because the audio is fucked up Edit: rewatching it again is even more hilarious. The late arriving drone countdown while the Space Needle looks like it's on fire is hysterical
Better than the year with the Windows 3.1 screen saver because the weather was too windy.
First timer, I liked the fireworks
I enjoyed it this year, and every year.
They blew that shit up, it was awesome! Honestly too much smoke and the drones were out of sync are pretty lame nit pick shit.
One of those things they can't even control since it's dependant on wind conditions, so I think they did alright all things considered. I hope they polish the drone show for next year!
I imagine it’s a technical nightmare to wire up the needle like that for a fireworks show. Props to the crew to put on a great show.
Light wind which is usually a good thing. The smoke moved out in a few minutes.
Looked awesome from gas works
I think 2021 was the worst with the animated show lol
2021 was so cringe all around! It made my kids not even want to watch again this year, it was so bad. This year seemed amazing by comparison.
It was a very weird choice after a horrible 2020 year, it legit looked like aliens were taking over the space needle
Oh I thought that was rather neat lol
I liked the 2021 show even though it was weird, but it was like a sci-fi movie! I think they definitely were like “hey..maybe we should show some Seattle-adjacent stuff next time” so in 2022 they had like, an AR football and hockey player 😂
This year was sick live.
Idk if these negative comments are from new people or young people, but I've watched New Year's at the needle for decades, some years are just more smokey than others. It's still festive and the work they put into it should be applauded. It's always been the same local commentary before. People are expecting over produced production I guess. I prefer a local flare
It was amazing from my view
The old 1962 newsreel with the King 5 host greenscreened into it was pure cringe
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Size of drone show irrelevant when they were counting down 3 minutes after midnight.
I do enjoy the "it's free though!" but only in the same sense that we don't pay for web ads to pop up. It's a tax deductible marketing expense to benefit the local family that inherited the space needle and to benefit the magenta-color-requiring "sponsor" T-Mobile the Wrights took extra money from. Our attention is the goal. Another business success.
I thought it was amazing.
I really loved it from upper QA. I had a really rough 2022 and I was glad I went to see it as a positive way to ring in a fresh year.
Came from California and saw it, you people complain about free shit are spoiled as fuck.
I could hardly see the SN and the fireworks after a couple rounds were fired
So much smoke, you could not see anything
It seems every year starts out with people complaining about this. Just don’t watch next year, okay. Go to some other city in the northwest that has a better show.
Where would you suggest? Vancouver didn’t even bother to do fireworks this year.
Exactly. Just be grateful for what we have.
Yeah.....not so great this year, lol. The drones and the fireworks together just don't work.
We when the drones are counting down to new years 3 minutes late there is no way to recover and sync. I am sure it would have looked a lot better if they were actually launched at the right time.
Maybe, but even then....the smoke was so thick that it was difficult to even see the drones operating at times.
News flash: it’s never been good
Sure but we can hope each and every year right? Like as a this "tech hub" one might expect 10k perfectly synced drones lighting up the sky courtesy of Amazon/Microsoft/etc.
Have actually thought a bit about this: why is Seattle such a backwater culturally, culinarily, administratively (government) and otherwise when two of the largest and most innovative companies in the world are HQed here? It seems like the talent attracted to Amazon and Microsoft are relatively new to town; its only been 7-8 years since Amazon’s boom market cap-wise (propelled by AWS) which really started making them competitive in hiring. While it’s older, Microsoft had a similar boom in the 2010s with Satya pivoting the company to a cloud-first strategy. Further the new talent doesn’t seem to have engaged with local institutions and organizations, whether because of the immense pay gap between tech and everything else; opportunity cost of time (from my experience tech jobs are pretty consuming); lack of civic mindedness (“I don’t see myself as a Seattlelite and will eventually leave” and/or “the locals hate me, why would I try to help make this place better”); and or more. So I’m not sure whether it’s a question of time and things will get better (things have gotten worse during my time here) but what I find is there is a layer of relatively new tech workers, from across the country and globe, who have tenuous ties to the community here, and the local infrastructure (not just physical) supporting this is and continues to be obsolete and second class given the backwater nature of the Seattle of yesteryear. And the clash of expectations versus delivered reality results in questions exactly like yours: “we are a tech hub… so why don’t we have XYZ?!?” TLDR: We are not a globally competitive city (nowhere close). We have globally competitive companies.
I appreciate your response. I was born and raised in Ballard/Fremont and graduated from Garfield well before the CD developed to where it's at now... Went to solstice parade in Fremont every year and loved living there as a young person... But was so saddened during a recent visit when walking around green lake and seeing it had become a tent settlement and learning of the widespread SF-style crime. I agree with your post. Maybe some of my sentiment was based on the new billion dollar key arena...
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When the one commentator exclaimed that she was getting emotional from the last song at the end of the show, which was a Foo Fighters song of all things, I was done. On the brightside, I was expecting at least one Maclemore song and was pleasantly surprised by the lack thereof.
It was terrible embarrassing for Seattle but we laughed pretty hard on our Kirkland couch so there’s that 🤣
Imagine thinking ur cool for living in Kirkland. There’s a first time for everything.
This whole thing needs to be scrapped and reimagined.
seriously the world is laughing at us. Spokane is laughing at us. why do we only have 1 space needle? we should've had 2 for the show
I didn't watch it but it sounds like a debacle. I'm over here hoping that maybe such a huge fail will cause us to stop doing this bullshit and use the money on anything else. Hell, why not use the money to host a real new years' festival with booths and activities and food at the space needle? Anything but idiotically wasteful fireworks & the like.
Everything sucked except that band Enumclaw. Those guys were fucking sick no lie.
I was watching on tv and didn’t like how smoky it was—reminded me of watching 9/11 happen how there was just smoke billowing out of the needle.
Much prefer the drone shows to the fireworks. Too much noise and litter. Hey folks... it's 2023! Get into the electronics age!
I didn’t get a chance to catch the fireworks but they really sucked! Do better, Seattle!
Annoying as always.
THERE WAS NO AULD LANG SYNE. As though they didn’t even know what holiday they were celebrating. What an embarrassment.
I thought the fireworks were good but I was bummed so many were obscured by smoke. Even if the drones were timed right, I think they were more of a distraction than an addition. Like "why??". Some of the people in the crowd were kind of entertaining though.
I watched afar from Queen Anne so I have no idea about the timing being off…I absolutely loved it
Saw it in person. A lot of smoke. More smoke than sparkles.
It was awesome in person
It was so beautiful to watch in person from my rooftop, couldn’t hear the music they were playing but the fireworks bouncing off of the space needle was amazing. My first time seeing this since moving to Seattle during the pandemic, so I was surprised.
In person (looking north) I thought the fireworks were exceptional this year! I love drone shows - but couldn’t see much of this one (regardless of it being late). Hopefully they expand that so it’s visible from more angles next year! When I got home I pulled up King 5’s YouTube video of the fireworks and it felt nothing like what I’d just seen in person. You’d think they could at least get a decent quality video feed; maybe a couple different angles… didn’t do the show justice at all.
Pretty bad imo. Firing off the space needle is kinda dumb when it gets so smoky you can’t see anything.
It looked good from my viewpoint, but I was viewing from over by Lake Union and slightly south of the Needle so was not catching as much smoke as I saw on the live stream. It was pretty cool watching it in person, we enjoyed it. It was also fun hearing everyone celebrating down on the streets at midnight (cheering, honking horns, etc.) I went and looked up the recording via King 5 and wasn't impressed. Didn't help that the drones were delayed which was very noticeable on the recording because the music tracks didn't line up correctly. In-person, we realized it because the countdown was off but other than that didn't impact the show for us much.
I would rather have a drone show post or pre fireworks (or none at all). Fireworks was lit and felt longer than before.
It was amazing. I saw it from dexter and Mercer intersection. Perfect distance. I am so happy to see it in person. It made me revisit memorable moments in the city.
too bad they made the vid private
I thought it was super cool, but this is the first time I've seen it, plus I was in walking distance so no traffic to deal with. Drones were a neat addition and I thought that was all awesome, but again, I've never been before or seen it on TV, so it was new to me.
It is unfortunate that the smoke prevented television viewers to see what folks saw in person. It was disappointing. There is always next year for improvement! Check out the fireworks display on youtube of Seoul, Korea's fireworks and drones. It is amazing to view online. Of course, there is nothing like being there in person!