Watch: In Dubai, The Coolest New Year's Eve Spectacle?
Lighting illuminates the Burj Khalifa tower in the colors of the Emirati flag early on New Year's Day in downtown Dubai. Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Lighting illuminates the Burj Khalifa tower in the colors of the Emirati flag early on New Year's Day in downtown Dubai.
Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty ImagesDubai, a city already known for its extravagance, upped the ante on New Year's Eve celebrations.
Instead of just wowing the world with a spectacular fireworks show, it wrapped the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest skyscraper, with 70,000 panels of LED bulbs.
The result was stunning. As The Hindu reports:
"The illumination around Burj Khalifa spanned 32,467 square metres and it surpassed the existing record held by Mall Taman Anggrek in Indonesia. The LED screen area around the skyscraper was nearly 3.75 times larger.
"The record-breaking LED display had 70,000 [panels of] LED bulbs placed in position using over 100,000 brackets and linked using 55,000 metres of cabling for the perfect visual display."
The video of the event is a bit of an ad for the city — it was released by a major developer, after all. But it's so cool that you have to watch:
What do you think? Could this be the coolest New Year's Eve spectacle?
Correction: Jan. 1, 2015
An earlier version of this post said the Burj Khalifa was wrapped in 70,000 LED bulbs. It was, in truth, wrapped in 70,000 panels of LED bulbs.