Kiama’s iconic New Year’s Eve fireworks celebrations are in danger of going up in smoke after Council withdrew funding for the 2025 event.

Destination Kiama now has to find sponsors to make up the $92,000 cost of staging the popular event or there will be no fireworks lighting up the harbour to ring in the new year.

The decision has disappointed Destination Kiama chair, Councillor Matt Brown who said Council should have prioritised money in the budget for this event rather than use ratepayer dollars to fund new Council Chambers.

“It’s a shame that that funding has been cut from the budget. The only years we didn’t do it was during COVID,” he said.

“We were presented with a choice of New Year’s Eve or event funding. The event funding is important as it spreads spend to attractions right throughout the year.

“But a smallish spend for New Year’s Eve results in a nearly 15 times return on investment.”

Council director of planning, environment & communities Ed Paterson provided Councillors with Spendmapp's "Event Tracker" data which revealed there was $1.76 million in local spending on New Year’s Eve, which was the highest total recorded across recent major events.

Compared to other weekends, that result was 4% higher than the Changing Tides Festival 2023 and 24% above last year’s event, and more than $630,000 higher than a standard non-event weekend.

The New Year’s Eve Sky Show drives increased spending in hospitality, retail and related sectors, beyond what is usually expected on a busy summer weekend.

Kiama's New Year's Eve celebrations attract visitors to the town all day long. Photo: Peter Izzard Photography

Cr Brown said local families and businesses will be extremely disappointed if the fireworks display vanishes into thin air.

“I know how much local businesses and local families enjoy our New Year’s night show. They choose to stay in Kiama rather than go to Wollongong or Sydney,” he said.

“It’s a huge financial injection into our local businesses and at a cost of only $9 per household.

“I’m disappointed that it’s come to this. We could have gone without a new Council Chambers and had the fireworks, for instance. It’s all about priorities - we spent $250,000 on new desks, carpet and video equipment for our Council Chambers. Now we can’t afford fireworks.”

Cr Brown said Kiama’s iconic event is Australia’s biggest coastal fireworks outside of Sydney.

“I appreciate our financial situation at Council and I’d love to see businesses wanting to sponsor this event to reduce the burden,” he said.

“We might be able to resurrect New Year’s Eve fireworks.”

Kiama Council Chief Executive Officer Jane Stroud said in an ideal world, they would be able to cover the full costs but the reality of working under a Performance Improvement Order meant that alternative measures needed to be taken.

“What Council has resolved is that they would like Council to self-fund New Year's Eve,” she told The Bugle.

“New Year's Eve is great - last year we had over 16,000 people come and watch but it does cost the ratepayers up to $92,000.

“We will need to do up a package and put that out to the market and see if there are people, companies, businesses who would like to partner or sponsor, and contribute to the funding of the fireworks.

“It's a really lovely way to see the year out. I'm really hopeful we'll find some interested businesses and sponsors who want to be part of it because it's pretty incredible.”

Kiama Mayor Cameron McDonald was also hopeful that a solution can be found to keep the event alive.

“We are mindful that it does cost us a lot of money as a Council and it is ratepayers’ money in this time when we're under a PIO,” he said.

“The influx and the dollar spend for our local community and our local businesses is significant, so it's a matter of weighing that up as to how we approach it.”