Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/101592/1015994.000

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 9KB | 179 lines

                                                                                SPECIAL ISSUE: MILLENNIUM -- BEYOND THE YEAR 2000 

THE GREAT EVENT, Page 10

Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's 1999


You won't need an excuse to celebrate on the greatest New Year's
Eve of all. But you might need a reservation -- now.

BY JILL SMOLOWE - With reporting by Wendy Cole/New York and Dan
Cray/Los Angeles


    Here's the choice. Come Dec. 31, 1999, you can sit around
harrumphing that it's amateur night. That those out celebrating
the millennium are no doubt the very same people who can't even
spell it. (Two Ls, two Ns.) You can work yourself into a froth
about how the calendar change promises only to render every
check in your checkbook obsolete and produce a baby boomlet of
Millies and Millards. As you down a glass of warm buttermilk
before bed, you can note with satisfaction that the year is off
to a bad start: ABC says Two Thousand, CNN says Twenty Hundred.
Then you can fall asleep counting millennial sheep.

    Or you can acknowledge that this is the New Year's Eve to
beat all New Year's Eves. That millenniums roll around only once
every 1,000 years. That this is only the second chance in
recorded history for a blowout of this kind, which makes
Kahoutek an annoyingly frequent caller by comparison. That you
want to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime,
never-to-be-repeated, no-chance-to-do-it-again event. In a
word, you can party.

    As choices go, this should not be a hard one. Already,
party lovers from New York City to Paris to Tokyo are booking
rooms, making reservations and hatching plans for the
mega-night. Those who don't start planning now may find
themselves, on the night of nights, all dressed up with no
place to go. And that would be quite a downer -- sort of like
watching all the nines on your car odometer roll over into zeros
and having no one to share it with.

    So what if it's still more than seven years away? Grand
ideas don't take shape overnight. Just ask the 6,000 members of
the Millennium Society. Founded by American college students,
this group of youngsters first began dreaming and scheming about
New Millennium's Eve back in 1979. The society, which boasts a
worldwide membership, already has an agreement to charter the
Queen Elizabeth 2 (assuming she's seaworthy) to transport 1,750
people from New York City to Alexandria, Egypt. By ground, the
celebrators will continue on to the environs of Cairo to toast
the millennium at the Great Pyramid of Giza.

    Strangle any thoughts of crashing this one: invitations to
the Great Pyramid blowout were mailed ages ago. The list
includes anyone the society has ever honored as one of its 10
Most Inspiring People of the Year. (You remember: Bob Geldof
'85. Boris Becker '86. Paul McCartney '90. Whitney Houston
'91.) Interestingly, the people quickest to respond have all
been well over 35, among them First People George and Barbara
and Ronald and Nancy. Comedian George Burns, America's
seniormost party animal, RSVP'ed with the request "Can I bring
a date?"

    For members who can't make the extravaganza in Giza (the
estimated price tag is $10,000 a head), the society will offer
satellite-linked parties at sites in all 24 time zones around
the globe. Among the locations being scouted: Stonehenge, the
Eiffel Tower, the Acropolis, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of
China and Red Square. Who will provide the entertainment? Says
society executive director Carol Treadwell: "Prince put himself
on the short list with his song 1999." Sample verse: "If U
didn't come 2 party/ don't bother knocking on my door." The
round-the-globe revelry will go round the clock until all
party-goers cross the millennium threshold. Fun apart, the
hoopla will serve a worthy cause. The society aims to raise $75
million from the parties that night to fund international
student exchanges. (If that sounds optimistic, remember that
Live Aid brought in $72 million.)

    Other millennial entrepreneurs are thinking beyond the big
night. In Atlanta advertising consultant William Lower is
wooing corporations and foundations in hopes of bankrolling a
global election that would choose an Honorary World President
for the year 2000. Philadelphia officials are trying to launch
a "New Neighbors in the New Century" campaign that would
promote cross-cultural communication and bring national leaders
together to address Big Issues. The City of Brotherly Love also
wants to call attention to the contributions made by
Philadelphia inventors during the second millennium: the
matchbook, the eraser-topped pencil, the computer and, most
unforgettably, the revolving door.

    In New York City publicists and event planners are
preparing what has the potential to be the biggest New Year's
extravaganza of all. Barnett Lipton, president of Eventures,
which staged the welcoming party for the media at the 1992
Democratic Convention, says that by combining satellite
communications with cyberspace technology, it may be possible to
create a virtual-reality experience on a global scale. "Who says
you can't be in two places at once?" Lipton asks. "Using virtual
reality, we'll be able to celebrate with 5 billion people in a
room at one time -- provided there are enough hors d'oeuvres and
we don't run out of champagne."

    Five billion people? All in one room? Better to invite the
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to tea. If a galactic gathering
isn't your speed, there are lots of cozier options. The trick is
to dream early -- then act fast. As it is, 30 people with
foresight have already booked New Year's reservations at
Manhattan's Rainbow Room, where they will enjoy dining, dancing
and romance at "well under $1,000" a person, according to
managing partner Joe Baum. At the Waldorf-Astoria, 100 people
have secured spots for the ballroom festivities, including a
man who called all the way from Germany. Another on the list,
airline pilot James Hoogerwerf of Atlanta, reserved seating for
eight, inspired by a novel he read in which a bunch of World
War II soldiers agree to spend New Year's Eve at the Waldorf if
they survive the war.

    In France, Euro Dis neyland's fanciest hotel is already
booked solid, and word is out that the Concorde is planning to
hold a New Year's party at 60,000 ft. (18,290 m). Japan's
largest travel agency is hoping to sail six cruise ships into
the South Pacific toward the international dateline, where
passengers will be among the first humans to witness the
dawning of the new millennium.

    Most cruise ships and hotels say they haven't yet got
around to planning their millennium festivities. "We're worried
about the cruise business this year, much less 1999," snapped a
reservations manager at Princess Cruises in Los Angeles. At
Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, bookings are not accepted beyond
May 1993, and no thought has been given to fin-de-millenaire
entertainment. But don't be discouraged by such myopia; things
can change at the mere drop of an inquiry. In 1983 when the
Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City's Times Square was
still under construction, screenwriter Ed Woodyard phoned to
book a room for Dec. 31, 1999. A Marriott official divined the
potential publicity bonanza in the request and promptly offered
Woodyard a complimentary four-room suite. Woodyard was soon
immortalized on the Tonight show with perhaps the first
millennial joke: Come that day in 1999, Johnny Carson
predicted, Woodyard will be kept waiting in the Marriott lobby
for 45 minutes because his room isn't ready yet.

    Speaking of Times Square, don't rule it out.
Rock-'n'-oldster Dick Clark, who will turn 70 in 1999, plans to
be on hand, reporting the action for television audiences.
"That would be nice," he says. "It would indicate I'm still
ambulatory." Tama Starr, president of Artkraft Strauss, the
company that has been building and lowering the New Year's Eve
ball in Times Square since 1908, promises that the millennium
ball will be bigger and brighter and more spectacular than
ever. "There will be more strobe lights and maybe a hologram,"
she says. "Lots of dazzle and flash."

    That thought may give you pause, but consider this: you've
got seven years to find a date and make yourself presentable.
"There is still plenty of time to coordinate your hair with
your makeup," soothes fashion designer Dianne Brill. A night
owl, Brill is planning the outfit she will wear to usher in the
year 2000. Her rule of thumb: "Overdress, but be comfy."

    One more bit of advice: Relax. However you spend Millennium
Eve, you can't really go wrong. After all, humankind has been
down this path only once before -- and it's not likely anyone
did anything so memorable the first time round. So to recap: You
can sit home pondering new names for 20th Century Fox and making
earnest millennium resolutions. Or you can plan early, play hard
and party late. Whatever you decide, have a nice millennium.