Brampton hopes to proceed with in-person New Year’s Eve celebration, online event not ruled out

Brampton intends to go ahead with the planned in-person New Year’s Eve celebration despite new COVID-19 restrictions from the Province.

While Mayor Patrick Brown said he hopes the City can proceed with the event as planned, he did acknowledge the new restrictions will require some adjustments.

“We’re still looking into the feasibility of the event we have planned—we hope that we can continue to have an in-person celebration, but we have to do some additional work to understand the new provincial regulations,” Brown said during a press conference on Wednesday (December 22).

According to Brown, current regulations require venues provide seating for attendees for outdoor events, meaning the City would have to adjust the capacity limits.

“The provincial regulations require seating for these events, so we’ll have to look at the seating capacity we would have and if we have enough staff available to make an event like that function,” Brown said.

For now, the City hopes to move forward with the event as planned, but the possibility of moving it online isn’t out of the question.

“We’ll have to do some additional research to determine whether we can still have the celebration as planned, or if the new regulations mean we’ll have to revert to an online event,” Brown said.

The performance planned for this year includes a fireworks display, as well as musical performances from Toronto-based singer-songwriter Ameerah, Toronto-based Oji-Cree singer-songwriter Aysanabee, and Juno Award-winning Canadian rock band Sam Roberts Band.

The festivities are scheduled to start at 9 p.m. at Garden Square, and they will culminate in fireworks at 12 a.m. to celebrate the arrival of 2022.