The Crescent City Countdown Club (CCCC) will welcome 2009
with a new fleur de lis drop, free live local entertainment, and the midnight fireworks display over the Mighty Mississippi River! Produced by the Crescent City Countdown Club in cooperation with the City of New Orleans and the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, festivities will begin at 8:00 p.m. at the Decatur Street City Stage in front of Jackson Square.

Join Mayor C. Ray Nagin as we count down to the New Year, and watch as the new black and gold 9 ft. high by 6 ft. wide lighted fleur de lis ascends a 25-foot pole atop Jax Brewery Condominiums to launch the exquisite “Symphony in the Sky” fireworks display.

“Created by Barry Barth of Barth Brothers Artists, the fleur de lis is the most well known symbol of our city,” says Erskine Terry, property engineer at Jax since 1984. “We decided to change to the fleur de lis to reflect a changing New Orleans,” Terry concludes. Barth Brothers Artists will also update the Baby New Year to 2009, which sits proudly on top of the Jax Brewery Condominiums.

The fireworks display will illuminate the sky and be choreographed to soulful New Orleans music and the spirited fight songs of the teams participating in the Allstate Sugar Bowl and, of course, our beloved New Orleans Saints. As we invite all the world to come to Mardi Gras 2009, the finale will feature a barrage of purple, green, and gold dancing across the skies to the “Mardi Gras Mambo” and end with B. B. King’s “Auld Lang Syne.” The NOLA New Year’s Eve celebration will be enjoyed in more than 38 states across the United States and also on the worldwide web, simulcast live on Magic 101.9 FM and WWL AM, FM, and .com.

The Crescent City Countdown Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formed exclusively to preserve and produce New Orleans’ traditional New Year’s Eve festivities in the French Quarter. “A NOLA New Year’s Eve is truly a community effort and a tribute to the big hearts and resilient souls of the people of New Orleans,” says CCCC Treasurer Adrienne Thomas. “Without support from French Quarter Festivals, Inc., Allstate Sugar Bowl, Harrah’s New Orleans, and twenty-one downtown businesses, there would be no New Year’s Eve fireworks celebration in the French Quarter this year.”