The Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment, co-organizers of Times Square New Year's Eve announced a special NYE "live video stream" of the Times Square party with entertainment superstars Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Drake, Pitbull, Cee Lo Green, Drake, Hot Chelle Rae and the all encompassing "more" providing plenty of entertaining moments on the Nivea stage.
Hoping to bring a real New York City New Year's Eve to people around the World, we here at the Communities set up the live stream provided by Countdown Entertainment of the Times Square party only to find ourselves enjoying interivews with the various people that set up, tear down and clean up the party; the guys with the big voices encouraging the crowds to scream and yell; multiple viewings of Drake and the cast of the Broadway musical "Rock of Ages;" and we got to watch the Green Goblin/Anderson Cooper bit via their camera "shooting" the Times Square jumbotron.
Which begs the question that since they were able to give us plenty of pre-recorded video, why couldn't they get the pre-recorded video from inside the theater of the bit? Instead we got a picture of what was appearing on the screen and it was really just a blur of green and hot light.
Basically the big video feed was a six hour ad for Nivea with some blonde lady running around trying to get people to say "Happy New Year" in their language. Most had no idea what she was saying. I had no idea what she was talking about.
However, while the video was a bit of a fail, the company we kept was a 100 percent win.
Last night we did not get to see Cee Lo, or Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber, much to the utter dissapointment of his fans, particulary fans like @SophieBieber and @Marilena who both started watching in from Italy at 6:00pm EST where it got very late for the two young Bellas, but we learned a lovely toast, along with a bit of sales progaganda, from the guys at Waterford who make the crystal triangles that make up the ball:
"There are good ships, and there are wood ships, the ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are friendships, and may they always be."
Hoping to bring videos of the events to fans like @SophieBieber and @Marilena is not easy, but I found the one below. I hope they don't darken it before our Italian friends can see it.
I am disappointed that we were not able to bring a more robust experience to our online social friends around the world who hung out with us. And I apologize.
We were told the video feed would be there and that it would be inclusive of the acts on the Nivea stage, but it was a bit of a bait and switch. They are claiming technical difficulties with the online streams.
Maybe next year?
Of course as this is the Mayan year 2012, well, you never know.
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