Sydney in Australia is often the first big city to ring in the new year with a fantastic fireworks display - but last night it got things terribly wrong.

More than 1.5 million people were thronged in the city's harbour to count down to midnight, but come the moment itself the wrong message was beamed on to Sydney Habour Bridge.

The sign proclaimed: "Happy New Year 2018!"

It was an embarrassing slip-up for the city's largest ever fireworks display, which lasted for 12 minutes.

Image: Can you spot the mistake? Pic: @michvllv

Image: Another social media user spotted the mistake. Pic: @izskies

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the display cost £3.2m and consisted of 8.5 tonnes of fireworks and roughly 100,000 individual pyrotechnic effects.


The newspaper reported that the event is Australia's largest public gathering and brings in £73m for the local economy.

Social media users mocked the mistake. Izzy Erskine wrote: "Oh no it's 2018 again"; Neil Clark said: "Happy New Year 2018... Wait, have I got that wrong?"; Michelle wrote: "Happy new year apparently it's still 2018 here in Sydney".

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According to the celebrations' executive producer, Anna McInerney, the team was not "pleased" by the mistake but was able to have a laugh about it and move on.

"It takes 15 months to organise an event of this size and scale," she said. "It was a mistake but we can clarify that it is actually 2019.

"Let's focus on the great stuff that happened last night, it was incident-free despite a little bit of lightning."