San Francisco businesses prep for New Year's Eve parties

In less than 24 hours, New Year’s Eve parties will be well underway across the Bay Area.

Some San Francisco parties are already sold out for New Year’s Eve, and come midnight, there’s a good chance of clear skies to see the fireworks in all their glory.

On Monday on the barge of Pier 68, the pyro spectacular crew readied the fireworks shells ahead of their annual New Year’s Eve show.

“We have beautiful new product, some things that you’ve never seen before, some old favorites,” said Pat Dyas, show producer for Pyro Spectacular.

Dyas is the man who gives the custom 15-minute show its magic and originality.

“Each show is unique, when it’s a world-class city like this it’s not just out of the can type of a production,” he said.

Around San Francisco, venues will be setting up Tuesday for their glitzy, New Year’s Eve parties. The Mark Hopkins Hotel, which in past years hosted 800 people in its ballroom for New Year’s Eve, this year trimmed the guest list down to 100, for a more intimate party at the top of the mark, reminiscent of the historic hotel’s New Year’s Eve parties of the past.

“A nod to history, a celebration of 98 years of the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco, what better way to do it than in a selected group at the top of the mark at midnight,” said Michael Pace, General Manager at Intercontinental Mark Hopkins San Francisco.

Tickets to the formal affair sold out weeks ago, at $550 a person, which includes a seven-course dinner with wine parings, live music, dancing, and of course, champagne.

“At midnight, we have a countdown, we have a balloon drop, and if we get the timing right it will be perfectly synchronized with the fireworks display,” Pace said.

For a bigger crowd at $220 a ticket, VIP Nightlife has room aboard the four-story San Francisco belle cruise ship. The 1920s themed Great Gatsby bash includes casino games, drinks and dining, a DJ, and a view of the midnight fireworks on the sky deck.

Source: NBC Bay Area