Laser countdown
will light up
Diamond Head
The final seconds of 1999
By Pat Omandam
also will tick down on a
screen at Waikiki Beach
Star-BulletinFor a big New Year's Eve countdown, look no farther than Hawaii's most famous landmark.
A laser light will tick down the final seconds of 1999 in giant numbers on the Waikiki side of Diamond Head Crater, as part of the Hawaii Millennium Commission's New Year's Eve celebrations.
Projecting laser images will not harm the crater or anyone who happens to be up there, said Robin Berg, event coordinator of Successful Events Enhancement and Development.
The company, known as SEED Hawaii, is organizing two millennium events for Dec. 31 that were announced yesterday by the commission.
Berg said the plan is to place a pineapple-shaped countdown clock on Waikiki Beach, aligned with the Kuhio Beach groin, that will begin a countdown a minute before midnight. At 10 seconds before midnight, SEED engineers at a nearby laser station will flash a laser beam above the clock onto Diamond Head.
The laser light image will be between 75 and 100 feet tall and between 150 and 450 feet wide, depending on the final alignment, Berg said. The clock and the laser image will count down from 10 to 0, followed by the words "Hawaii 2000" flashing on both the crater and a three-story-high laser screen set up on Waikiki Beach. Other images of Hawaii will then be shown.
"We've done it in a way to where nobody has to move into any particular area in big masses to enjoy it," Berg said. He said the $18,000 laser show has city approval.
Berg said the company approaches all of its events in an environmentally friendly way. In this case, that means using a 7-watt laser, which is much weaker than the 100-watt lasers proposed by others for the countdown.
He said that if someone were up on the crater and accidentally looked directly at the laser, the effect would be like looking into a bright spotlight.
Other Dec. 31 events sponsored or sanctioned by the commission, whose goal is to bring 500,000 more people to Hawaii next year: There's much to do, see
to mark New Year's Eve
Aloha Tower's Cycle City/Kawasaki Celebration of the Century: Aloha Tower will feature a concert by Cecilio & Kapono and Kalapana. It will also be the site of a five time-zone New Year's celebration that begins with a live toast at Times Square in New York. At 10:31 p.m., ABC news anchor Peter Jennings will go live from New York to Aloha Tower, with KITV providing a seven-minute broadcast expected to be seen in 100 countries. Hawaii's celebration will be broadcast live again at midnight. A 20-minute finale will take place at midnight at Sand Island. Call 566-2337.
