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On the Radar: Salute to Vienna and Swingin' New Year

By Franki Weddington on Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 1:00 am

swing dancing (preceded by lessons), a vintage fashion photo shoot, a balloon drop, and a countdown to midnight – if you can stay awake that long. (Pictured: Last year's Swingin' New Year balloon drop) Salute to Vienna, Thurs., Dec. 31, 8 p.m., Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 N. McMullen Booth Road, Clearwater, $42-$68, rutheckerdhall.com; Swingin’ New Year’s, Thurs., Dec. 31, 8 p.m., St. Petersburg Coliseum, 535 Fourth Ave. N., St. Petersburg, $18-$22, tampabayswing.com.

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Welcome to On the Radar: New Year's Eve, where we preview up-and-coming events to mark your calendar for. Not everyone wants to go out and make mistakes that they’ll spend all of 2010 trying to remedy, right? If booze and a roomful of people likewise looking to make poor judgments add up to trouble for you, maybe you should get ahead of the game and try one of these tamer New Year’s events:

The Salute to Vienna, where Vienna's "Waltz King," Johann Strauss Jr., leads an ensemble of more than 75 musicians, singers and dancers through a concert of popular (with the Lawrence Welk crowd) polkas, waltzes, marches and operetta excerpts. Or, if your arthritis hasn’t quite set in, you could try the Swingin’ New Year, which offers