The Champs-Élysées traditionally serves as a major gathering place for Paris New Year's Eve celebrations.
The avenue runs from the Place de la Concorde toward the Arc de Triomphe and is one of Paris's best-known public spaces. On December 31, crowds have gathered there to watch light projections, celebrations, and the midnight transition, although event details and crowd controls can change from year to year.
The Arc de Triomphe is the avenue's prominent western landmark and has often featured in New Year's visual displays. Paris does not have a permanently identical fireworks program every year, so descriptions of the celebration should not be treated as an unchanging schedule.
The name Champs-Élysées refers to the avenue itself, not the Arc de Triomphe or the Eiffel Tower. The French phrase means “Elysian Fields,” a reference to the blessed afterlife in Greek mythology and a name also used for a district of Paris.