More than 3,200 attend Belfast fete Music, fireworks highlight bay celebration

BELFAST – Sometime around 6 p.m. New Year’s Eve, Mary Mortier knew.

The executive director of Belfast’s New Year’s By The Bay, Mortier watched the last of 3,200 metal admission buttons be sold, while a line of people stood outside the door of the vacant Main Street storefront serving as headquarters for the event.

Mortier and her crew of volunteers had to print paper copies of the buttons, and kept selling, she recalled Tuesday afternoon, as she and other volunteers cleaned up the storefront from the thousands of feet that passed through Monday night.

“We think maybe it was the best year ever,” Mortier said. This year’s event marked the fifth consecutive year, a milestone for any volunteer-run effort.

Modeled on Portland’s First Night, New Year’s By The Bay is a substance-free, family-friendly series of performances and entertainment all located within walking distance of one another in downtown Belfast. The event features almost nonstop choices including: cartoons and movies, rock bands, belly dancing, puppet and magic shows, folk music, poetry, a cappella singing groups and storytellers.

All the key factors were in place for a great celebration, she said. The sale of admission buttons – which those attending wear on their coats and hats as they wander from performance to performance – took off shortly after the five-day weather forecast was issued, calling for dry but seasonable temperatures.

Last year, the threat of a storm scared away many out-of-town attendees, Mortier said, which resulted in a 30 percent drop in sales. And in the first two years, temperatures in the single digits with a biting wind took some of the fun out of walking from venue to venue.

The event also benefited from good publicity, Mortier said. Radio stations WERU-FM, KISS 94.5-FM and WBFB-FM “The Bear” all provided regular reminders about the event. Community Internet station k2Bh posted a schedule and a link to the New Year’s By The Bay Web site, and a section-front story with a schedule appeared in the Bangor Daily News, along with stories in the two local weekly newspapers.

Distributing the printed schedule as early as mid-November for the first time seems to have been a good move, Mortier said, and with no New Year’s event in Camden, there may have been more people attending from that area.

New Year’s By The Bay featured a strong entertainment bill.

“It was a great lineup this year,” Mortier said.

The jazzy, folksy piano music of Paul Sullivan, who has played to great acclaim at New Year’s By The Bay in past years, and the homegrown folk music of Maine native David Mallett led the fare, with another 150 performers also displaying their talents. Both headliners played two sets to 200 people, Mallett in the historic First Church, and Sullivan in the First Baptist Church.

In all there were 70 performances, Mortier said, and a handful of other events, such as an ecumenical worship service, horse-drawn carriage rides, a teen coffeehouse and a demonstration of curling at the Belfast Curling Club.

The night was capped off by nearly 20 minutes of fire-works over the bay ending at midnight.

Kathy Stewart, treasurer and volunteer coordinator, said about 200 people contacted her about volunteering at the event. More than 100 were put to work, she said.

Mortier said the planning work for next year’s event begins almost immediately. She said that without the volunteers – those who don the aprons with the New Year’s By The Bay logo and stand outside venues in the cold, directing people, checking buttons, and generally making sure everyone is happy – the event wouldn’t succeed.