READING, Pa.- New Year’s Eve in Reading doesn’t look just one way. It sounds like the cheers of a hockey crowd. It feels like live symphonic music filling a theater. And it ends with fireworks lighting up the night sky.
The evening began at the Santander Arena, where the Reading Royals were back on the ice after the players’ union and the league reached a deal to end the strike.
“I played my whole life, and we’re happy that the strike didn’t hold up and that we were able to come,” said fan Jimmy McKee.
From there, the celebration moved downtown to the Santander Performing Arts Center, where the Reading Symphony Orchestra filled the hall with music from the James Bond films.
“I love the Reading Symphony Orchestra. They do just beautiful music. Love all the James Bond movies,” said film producer Ann Goodman.
Some people planned their entire New Year’s Eve around the show, even traveling hours to be there.
“Typically, we stay at home on New Year’s Eve, and if we see the ball drop, we’re lucky,” said Laurie Bond, who drove in from Virginia. “We talked to a friend and said, ‘What are you doing on New Year’s Eve?’ We said nothing, and he said, ‘You need to go to Reading, Pennsylvania, and see the Bond show.’ So we did.”
And then came the most anticipated moment of the night.
At 9:30 p.m., fireworks lit up the sky from Mount Penn, a tradition now in its 29th year, offering a shared moment for families and neighbors to close out one year and welcome the next.
“We go later to our daughter’s for midnight,” said Sheila Walter. “And since it’s a good time frame in between, we can get there and celebrate with them also and then we tell them what we experienced here.”