Global Village, the UAE and wider region’s leading multicultural family destination for culture, shopping, and entertainment, welcomed in the New Year in spectacular style as a series of celebrations took place across the park to mark the beginning of 2021. What transpired over the course of the evening will live long in the memory of everybody in attendance as a vibrant atmosphere and spirit of excitement came together with unique shopping, dining, and entertainment attractions.

In line with the Global Village tradition of celebrating with countries and cultures from around the world seven fireworks displays lit up the skies to introduce the New Year, with each display going live immediately after the countdown to midnight in each time zone. At midnight, New Year officially got underway in the UAE with a dazzling fireworks display accompanied by Global Village’s poignant signature song, “حلوة الحياةTogether”. The song, launched earlier in 2020, was a perfect way to bring in the New Year as RedOne and Ahlam sing of inclusion and what can be achieved when people of the world unite to realise their dreams. But the celebration wasn’t over at midnight as the last firework display of the UAE burst over Global Village at 1am.

At the end of the evening, in a touching tribute, guests and staff gathered around Global Village lake for a fire and fountain show created to honour the incredible front line heroes who worked so hard to keep us safe in 2020. After the “High Hopes for Heroes show” a standing ovation could be heard across the Park to acknowledge and thank the doctors, nurses, paramedics, testing and care staff, cleaning crews, Police, Ambulance services, Civil Defense and all the many individuals who sacrificed their own safety to care for their communities all over the world over the past year.

Global Village has been making sustained progress as it bids to break 25 Guinness World Records™ titles to mark the 25th anniversary. The latest title was claimed on New Year’s Eve to the delight of everybody in attendance who witnessed the countdown to2021 on the largest underwater mesh screen in the world. The LED mesh screen measures 5013.394 square meters and 223,000 pixels. This is the 9^th record of the season and moves the park closer to its ambitious target of 25, one for each week of the season.

As we wave goodbye to a year that was anything but ordinary, Global Village wishes everyone health, happiness and prosperity in 2021, a year we will all pull together to make truly wonderful.