Mobile New Year’s Celebration Schedule

Alabama Mobile Mobile's $9000 Moonpie to rise over the Mobile River at midnight

by City of Mobile/News 5 Staff

Published: Wed, December 31, 2008 - 10:08 am CST Last Updated: Wed, December 31, 2008 - 9:26 pm CST

The City of Mobile Alabama Rings In The New Year With A New Feature - The Moon Pie

Tasha Lang, the reigning 2008 queen of the Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association, will serve as the mistress of ceremony for the City of Mobile New Year’s Eve celebration featuring the world’s largest MoonPie. The event will usher in the city’s Carnival season.

The event will be held in Cooper Riverside Park, beginning at 8:00 p.m. with a star-stunned lineup headlined by New Orleans jazz singer Charmaine Neville.

Timeline Schedule

“New Year’s Eve Celebration”

December 31, 2008

Time Group Location

8:00–8:20 p.m. The Dance Center Amphitheatre

8:20–8:40 p.m. Bishop State Community College Choir Park Stage

8:40-9:00 p.m. Melinda Leigh School of Dance Amphitheatre

9:00-9:20 p.m. Mobile Opera Park Stage

9:30-9:50 p.m. Murphy High School “Elements of Difference” Park Stage

9:50 p.m. Procession Begins At Fort Conde Village

1. Excelsior Band

2. Elected Officials

3. City of Mobile James Seals Band

4. Mobile Azalea Trail Maids

5. City of Mobile Thomas Sullivan Band

6. Antique Fire Truck

10:05 p.m. Procession Arrives at South Plaza

10:10 p.m. Speeches From Councilman Richardson/Chattanooga Bakery (55-lb

edible moonpie unveiled)

10:15 p.m. Headliner: Charmaine Neville Park Stage

11:55 p.m. “5” Minutes Until New Year

11:59 p.m. New Year Countdown

12:00 a.m. Electronic Moon Pie Raised

12:15-12:30 a.m. Headliner Concludes

The city has partnered with the Chattanooga Bakery Inc., the maker of the iconic MoonPie brand marshmallow sandwich, to enhance the New Year Eve's celebration with a 500-lb electronic moonpie that will light up Mobile's skyline at the stroke of midnight. Prior to midnight, officials from the Chattanoga Bakery, will serve up an edible 50-lb chocolate moonpie, dubbed the world's largest.

In addition to the 60-lb edible moonpie, the bakery will also hand out 5,000 of the tasty treats to New Year Eve's revelers.

Ingredients Of The World's Largest Edible Moonpie

* Six pounds of chocolate icing;

* Fourteen pounds of marshmallow;

* Nearly four feet in diameter;

Materials For The Electronic Moonpie

* 700-1000 LED golf ball-size lights;

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BamaBob Says:

Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 7:17 am

I got a big kick out of watching the live stream. Almost felt like I was there, except I was on my couch under a warm blanket and sipping a hot coffee. lol

As you improve your technology, I would love to see a whole production with a reporter doing man on the street type interviews and closeups of the bands, etc.

The pie was a little cheesy, but it did create a little buzz and the overall idea is not a bad one. I still think a competition should be held for ideas and private donations taken. The staging could be greatly improved by sticking something on a barge, bringing it closer to the park and using the fireworks display as a backdrop.

David Rencher Says:

Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 1:24 am

dougstech
I agree, balancing bandwidth vs quality is a challenge. One of the nice features in the new Flash Media Server is multibitrate streams and seamlessly switching between bitrates depending on network connection speeds.

dougstech Says:

Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 1:08 am

I really didn’t mind the lag, it was the bitrate, size, and quality of the stream that had me disappointed. The video was tiny on my 22” screen! But, any bigger video would have had a much bigger bandwidth bill, so I can live with it.

David Rencher Says:

Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 1:05 am

Your welcome and Happy New Years to you as well

DEW26M Says:

Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 12:58 am

David Rencher. I am aware of the lag in the encoding. I’m sorry, it’s New Years and I have had a little to drink. That was my attempt at sarcasm! I’m approximately 1 207.32423 miles away, if 52 seconds is all the lag I encounter I’m doing quite well! HAHAHAHAHA Thanks to you and the rest of the WKRG News Team for making the feed available to me!!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR

David Rencher Says:

Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 12:50 am

@DEW26M
the way our current encoding using “media encoder” (WME) for “live” web streams causes a sleight lag time during the encoding process. Our Web articles use a Flash based Encoding stream but obviously those are not live. I hope to switch to a flash based streaming server for live streams soon.

tiff Says:

Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 12:49 am

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

About the moonpie I dono what to say. LOL maybe it was more extravagant in person and it was a nice try and I’m sure it will only improve and the fire works were nice.

DEW26M Says:

Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 12:45 am

moonpie too

DEW26M Says:

Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 12:44 am

dougstech, that look is typical of one who has nothing but a 9K moonpis on his mind!

dougstech Says:

Thu, Jan 01, 2009 at 12:42 am

Just look at the way Richardson is at city council meetings…not only does he seem to not care about being there, he looks like he would rather be taking a nap.

http://flickr.com/photos/dougstech/2649805065/
http://flickr.com/photos/dougstech/2650637810/

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