Every 31 December, hundreds of thousands of sweltering revelers gather around the edges of Sydney Harbour, anticipating the fireworks that mark the arrival of the New Year. The ritual seems so embedded in Sydney culture that it seems it must always have been thus. It has not. Hannah Forsyth analyses the emergence of New Year's Eve in Sydney and considers what lies beneath it. Why did the celebration of New Year's Eve coincide with industrialization? How do we understand the connections between urban pleasure and modernity in the social and economic structure of modern cities? This book details the changing locations and rituals of New Year's Eve in Sydney while exploring the phantasmagoria that this urban carnival represented.