First Night is Boston's famous New Year's Eve celebration and wow - do they really know how to ring in the New Year!! There are so many events and features and activities that it's almost overwhelming lol! I can say with all confidence that everyone should spend at least one NYE in Boston in their lifetime! And bonus - it's extremely family friendly and felt very safe - and it's completely FREE! The city gets started early on NYE with ice sculptures!! If you go early enough, you can watch these master artists at work! The city even puts together a "sculpture stroll" complete with interactive map (or paper map if you prefer) - like an ice sculpture scavenger hunt haha! There were so many sculptures that I wasn't able to get to all of them...but I loved the ones I saw. And it's a really fun way to walk around the city and check out areas you may not normally walk to. All day long they have live music, parades, tons of activities kids will LOVE - like puppet shows and an ice skating rink. And at 7pm they do their first of three - yes THREE - fireworks shows!! This first one is over Boston Common and gives families a chance to join in on all the celebratory fun without having to keep the kiddos up until midnight which I think is just awesome! Then the party kicks off in Copley Square where they count down to midnight with their own ball drop but it looks more like a giant acorn lollll??? This is where the crowd gets really thick and lively - I believe they say over a million people visit for this party! And when the ball drops, a pyrotechnic show blasts off the top of the Fairmont Copley hotel followed by giant fireworks over the Boston Harbor! If you're coming to First Night, I highly recommend using Boston's brilliant public transportation system - it's so much easier and very convenient! Parking and driving in Boston is a nightmare. The city is extremely walkable with tons of restaurants and cozy cafes to take a break in so it's extremely enjoyable to leave the car behind and make a day/night of it! read more

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First Night Boston is a viable option for families and those wishing to avoid the club scene but still celebrate New Years Eve. First night allows you to bring in the New Year with fireworks... And hundreds of thousands of strangers. Dress warm. It's usually 30 to 40 degrees out as you see ice sculptures, feast from food trucks and listen to local bands. THE DEAL: Most of it felt crowded into tiny Copley Square for the first time in 2017. It used to be spread out across the Waterfront and I assumed it was moved for security reasons following the Boston Marathon attack. read more

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I was in Boston for New Year's and am of an age where drinking at an Irish pub and getting spilled on, "dude"-ed, and "Whazzzup"-ed just doesn't thrill me anymore. Okay, so it's never really thrilled me. (I also must have shown my age there a bit too, because I just realized people haven't said "Whaaazuuuuuuup?" in like, a decade.) When my Boston friend first suggested the family friendly no-alcohol First Night, he also said we could combine it later with a drinking activity like a friend's party. Perfect! We got our First Night buttons the day of for $18 and used them to get into the ICA for free (a $15 value). This thing is paying for itself already! And pay for itself it will, with Museums, the Symphony, and many other places offering discounted admissions with the Button through January! We picked up a First Night schedule and were blown away that activities started around 3pm. And by activities, I mean numerous arts performances to choose from each hour and Family-friendly fare at the Hynes Convention Center, and independent theater spaces around Boston. If you wanted to take the kids to a few things and be home for NYE dinner, that's definitely an option! Just a few of the options I wish we had time to see: Shakespeare performance, Bollywood Films, Latin Bands, Marionettes, and the list goes on. We did get to see some great improv by ImprovBoston at the Hynes. Very family-friendly and pretty good. Even though the performers had microphones, it would have been nice NOT to have a band in the next room though! Figuring Beantown would go crazy for hometown 90's heroes Buffalo Tom, we headed to the old Orpheum theater early. At this point it would have been nice to at least have the option of getting a beer. I mean, rock 'n roll, people! Next time I'll snuggle in a 1/2 pint of Jameson or something. Well, so we caught opener the Neats reuniting, and I had no idea who the Neats were. Big time heroes in Boston between 1981-86, they sounded like a lot of bluesy rock 'n' roll from my own hometown at that time. Did I mention that the crowd was incredibly small? Anyway, it was nice to have seats in front for Buffalo Tom. Bill Janovitz rocked it like it was 1994, favoring material from the excellent Let Me Come Over album. A girl in the front row, well, more of a woman who was screaming like the girl she was in 1994; got lots of her requests played. Oh, and what better way to be led on to Boston Harbor than with a screaming version of "Tangerine"? If you waited at the Harbor long enough you could get on a boat for the fireworks with your First Night Button! We opted to watch the fireworks standing around the Harbor with the rest of the crowd. I give First Night in Boston five stars because my hometown Milwaukee no longer does it, and neither does my current home, a little city called Chicago. Yeah, so appreciate Bostonians! Should old indie-bands be forgot, and never brought to mind, we'll see them at First Night next year, for Auld Lang Syne! read more

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First Night, like our dinner that evening (at Vapiano), was a disappointment. I've been wanting to try First Night for YEARS but always wimped out due to the cold or got invited elsewhere. When our friend invited us to First Night this year, we immediately decided this was the year. My husband & I got to Hynes around 3 or so and were able to catch the end of the "Maximum Velocity" show and the "Skyriders" show. These were fun, but the Maximum Velocity was definitely high schoolers (nothing as cool as professional BMXer or X-gamers). Not disparaging, just saying it didn't live up to our expectations. The same goes for "Morgan White Jr. - The Man from T.R.I.V.I.A." I LOVE Trivia and was SO excited for this. Unfortunately, all Morgan White, Jr. did was sit in the front of the room, throwing out trivia questions and letting people yell out the answer (rather than having people raise their hands to get called on or actually organize teams or something). He also randomly gave out prizes to people who came in late without having them answer questions. We left this before it ended when our friends showed up because it was not nearly as fun as we thought. Our friends had a 2-year-old and it was almost impossible to find any activity for him. We sat in the Peter Pan & Poi ballet and left that. Things were starting to close up around 5, so we walked to our dinner reservation, getting pelted in the heads with Mardi Gras beads from the parade. It took us WAY longer to make it to dinner than expected due to the crowds, but at least we experienced part of the NYE excitement! We saw 1 of the ice sculptures and quickly snapped a photo in front of it. There were "early fireworks" - we thought they were at 7:30pm, but were in fact at 6:45, while we were at dinner. So we missed them (one friend ran out with her daughter to see them). After dinner, my husband and I were excited to see "The Cover-Up" cover the Beatles, but were rather disappointed to discover they were performing in the CityPlace Food Court - no button needed (so glad we paid $18 each, but anyone could watch this show!). We left after 3 songs. We walked through the Commons and saw the "Looking Glass'" ice sculpture, which was awesome, but the Puerto Rico ice sculpture was under construction or something?? What were they doing and why were they doing it at 9pm on NYE!? We were able to catch the 9:30 showing of the "Commonwealth Shakespeare: Bard Over Broadway" show, but could BARELY hear and of the songs, as the mics and/or acoustics were just awful. So we left halfway through and headed home, disappointed. Perhaps it's because we don't have kids, so we couldn't take advantage of the kid activities; or because we left before the "Countdown to Midnight," but we decided we will not be doing First Night again. Did we do it wrong? Did we miss out on the "real" First Night activities? Perhaps, but oh well. At least we gave it a try! read more

$16 to watch various performers and be ON A BOAT IN BOSTON HARBOR to watch the midnight fireworks? That's what I call a deal and a half. I'll admit I was second-guessing our decision to spend the money when we woke up to snow, but that ended pretty quickly after arriving at the Common where we filled our bellies with street vendor food (what's better than a corn dog in the snow!?) and our eyes with gorgeous ice sculptures and people-watching. My only regret was not planning better and making better use of our buttons and seeing more of the stuff going on at the Hynes. read more

Paid $18 per person, watched a community parade, struggling improv comedians, a stuttering stand up comedian, walked to watch a band that was out of tune, then stood in line for a cabaret that was too filled and they didn't let us know. Only redeeming thing was that the Au Bon Pain manager took pity on us and gave us free coffee and pastries. read more

It's a sweet deal. I paid $18, got a button, saw a number of events. The quality of the events varies widely. A few were truly memorable. The museum of fine art was included with the $18. Regular admission to the museum is something like $22, so my button paid for itself quite early on. The jazz quartet was amazing and has made me begin to appreciate jazz. We kept seeing ads around town and on the T for a new mint hot chocolate being offered by a New England originated coffee shop (yes, that one). We made plans to acquire one at the next opportunity we had. Low and behold, we were able to score free samples of the hot chocolate at one of the outside events. It really made my day. One of the comedy shows was sub par. My group ended up leaving the show mid-way through. After all, why waste time when there are so many other good events to see? We ended up going next door to a comedy improv group, and we are very glad we did! One thing to bear in mind is that there is no alcohol served that these events. We had to duck into some local bars to partake. Boston has a fair number of fine local watering holes, so this really wasn't a problem. We had some free time and took a walk through the parks to see the ice sculptures when they are lit up at night. Quite well done. Our first night experience came to its conclusion at a free outside event with DJ Die Young playing in front of a light show. A wonderful night that I will remember fondly for quite sometime. read more

Very nice I wasnt abre to stay the whole time but I was able to enjoy a bit of it. Its perfect for a family!! And gives you a lot to do!!

You couldn't PAY me to participate in First Night. Do you, dear reader, wherever you are, understand how utterly FREEZING it gets here in Boston on December 31? It's insane. You can't hang outside for more than a few minutes before your nose and ears start getting that painful-freeze-cold, you know what I'm talking about, right? No? Are you from Texas? Probably you are. It's 1,000 more times comfortable to be at home watching this on TV (or at a party somewheres...). The tickets are overpriced, all the bars have some outrageous cover charge which the bouncers keep half of themselves anyway (glad to see extortion is alive and well). So that's that! read more

I've always been a First Night fan, went many times in years past but as I've gotten older and the weather seemingly colder have skipped quite a few recently. Last summer (of 2015) it seemed the whole event might die as the organization that ran it hit financial problems. But another group took it over, they put on a great event, and it was entirely FREE! It was scaled back a bit from prior years but still had ice sculptures, fireworks (x2), parades, and performances by a lot of good bands on a stage in Copley square. The weather cooperated too - no precipitation and temps near 40. read more

This was our first New Years Eve in Boston and while we usually sit at home in our pj's we decided to take a walk on the wild side and buy buttons to First Night. Being the careful planner that I am, I researched all of the events, crafted an itinerary and charted our route around Boston. We started at a bar for a quick cocktail to keep us warm then headed to the Otis House Museum where we recieved a brief tour of the first floor of the historic home. Though short, we will be back to see the rest of the home. From there we wondered about the common to see the ice sculptures and the ice skaters on Frog Pond. The snow had just fallen and walking around town was just beautiful that night. Next we headed to Boylston street. We got a table by the window of a jazzy little bar and watched the parade drift by while we sipped on cocktails. When the parade was over we headed to Old South Church for a 45 minute Brass Band show. It was nice to see the inside of the church and hear the history of the organ and composers, though the music was a bit uninspired. From there we visited another restaurant and wondered around a bit before calling it a night and ringing in the new year from the safety of our living room sofa. All in all, the first night events were enjoyable and diverse. Well worth the $18.00 and appropriate for all ages. read more