The final featured event in our planner series is the biggest NYE bash in the Bay.

First Night

The Bay area’s booze-free NYE extravaganza takes over the streets of downtown St. Pete for its 16th year in a row. All manner of family-friendly diversions abound — art- and mask-making activities for kids, ghost tours, zydeco and cajun dance lessons, a temporary tattoo parlor, a “Labyrinth of Eating Green,” storytelling, tai chi demos and instruction, live entertainment by fire eaters, breathers and dancers, a community drumming circle, “ice” skating and live music and performances by the Blind Willie and Allen Moffatt Blues Allstar Review (featuring the Raiford Starke Band), the Mt. Zion Progressive Drum Line, Pickford Sundries, Freddy Montes y su Son, O Som Do Jazz, Tampa Bay Steel Drum Orchestra, Dundu Dole Urban African Ballet, T-Broussard & the Zydeco Steppers, St. Petersburg Opera Company, harpist Anna Kate Mackle, Florida West Ballet, Lutheran Church of the Cross Bell Choir and several others. Fireworks are set off every hour on the hour, with a climactic finale at midnight. Wed., Dec. 31, 5 p.m.- midnight, at various locations throughout downtown St. Petersburg, $10 adults/$5 children, 727-823-8906, firstnightstpete.com.

For info about other NYE events taking place across the Bay area, click here.

This article appears in Dec 24-30, 2008.