The First Night family-friendly New Year's Eve celebration began in Boston in 1976.
Artist Clara Wainwright conceived the event as an alternative to conventional New Year's parties that often centered on alcohol. The inaugural celebration brought artists and musicians into venues around Boston, giving audiences a citywide arts festival instead of a single nightclub-style gathering. Its programming was designed to be family-friendly and generally alcohol-free.
First Night combined music, dance, theater, visual art, ice sculptures, fireworks, and other performances. The format proved highly portable: similar celebrations soon appeared in cities across North America and eventually elsewhere. Boston remained the original and most prominent example of the concept.
The year can produce a small date trap. Some accounts describe the idea as first conceived for December 31, 1975, while the established First Night celebration began on December 31, 1976. For a question asking when the family-friendly celebration began, 1976 is the standard answer.