There will be no New Year's Eve concert on the waterfront in Sydney, N.S., tonight after the Cape Breton Regional Municipality cancelled the event featuring the band Port Cities due to frigid temperatures.
The municipality's recreation department had been monitoring the weather closely and announced the cancellation Sunday afternoon.
"Around 1 o'clock when we were to begin sound checks for our performers and so on, we had to really look at the safety factor," said Joe Costello, CBRM's recreation program coordinator.
On Sunday afternoon, it felt like -20 C with the wind chill, according to Environment Canada, with wind gusts reaching up to 35 km/h.
The festivities were set to run from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and include Membertou First Nation, Music Nova Scotia award-winners Port Cities, buskers, dance lessons and more.
As for the fireworks, CBRM expected them to go ahead at 9 p.m. over Sydney Harbour as planned..
Working on Plan C
He said given the number of events downtown, there was no space big enough to move the party indoors on Sunday. Plan B was to hold the same event outdoors Monday if needed, but the weather doesn't seem like it will co-operate.
Costello said organizers are now working on Plan C — to hold a smaller event indoors on Monday — but the details are still being worked out.
The municipality is encouraging people to keep an eye on its Facebook page for further updates.
"Something like this is dozens of people working on this event, so ... this decision doesn't come lightly," said Costello.
"You know, we're all down. This is something that we were really proud of, really excited for."
