To ask what it was like to experience the change from 1999 to 2000?

[2020newstart]

Just that really. I was 10, so don't remember much. But oddly I do remember 9/11 all this talk about the new decade makes me wonder how it was like going from 1999 to 2000? If you're old enough to remember, how was the celebration? It must have been so weird writing the year 2000 on forms when you've been used to writing 19.. since you were born

I was on a working holiday to Australia. Was working at Star City casino and we all went up to the roof with bottles of champagne to watch the fireworks. It was very cool. But the panic re the millenium bug was amusing

I saw in the new year at a united church service, which may sound very worthy/dull/deluded (depending on your point of view), but was actually very moving. Packed church - almost all my friends and family present - candlelight and much jollity as the bells rang out at midnight. There was a lot of hugging and we dashed out to the churchyard to watch the fireworks.

I had also been in bed with flu for a week and it was my first day of feeling healthy. So it felt FANTASTIC to be surrounded by so much love and good will. I think I may also have kissed the minister ! But in a good way !!

Then DH went into work to check the computers were working. And they were. So he was very relieved and we got on with our lives.

P.s. that date only sticks in my mind because I ended up getting kicked out and barred for trying to sneak in without a ticket

As it was I lived in Brighton at the time and couldn’t afford to go anywhere, so I was at a friend’s house. We went to the sea front to watch the fireworks then she went and made a baby that night!

Lots of panic about the y2k bug convincing me my microwave would blow up at midnight (it didn’t).

Apart from that it was a bit of an anticlimax.

Lots of panic about the y2k bug convincing me my microwave would blow up at midnight (it didn’t).

Well you clearly massively misunderstood the problem.

My dad was thrilled to bits. He couldn’t believe he’d actually be there to see it. He’d been a child during the war and survived an air attack on his school, had 4 heart attacks in the 70’s a quadruple bypass in the 80’s and ocular cancer in the 90’s.

Fit the rest of us it was another NY.

I was 24. It was just like every other NYE really. We had a family party with lots of drinks, food, dancing. It was fun, but nothing spectacular. I remember all the talk about the millennium bug but didn't really pay much attention to it or understand what it was about. DS was 4 months old so he was a bit of a distraction from it all.

I was in my early teens. Visiting family in the UK. I'd been given a 'millennium dome 2000' tshirt as a Christmas present so was wearing that. The dome was hyped AF.
I'd been given some copies of Shout magazine to flick through in my guest room. I was drawn to the Xmas 1998 issue. The fashion in it was like the current trends in Topshop etc
The 2000 edition had worried teens asking about the millennium 'bug' and end of the world on the problem pages, and stories of parents stockpiling essentials and tinned goods! Spice girls lyrics were on the back page.
We had a Chinese then at the stroke of midnight, neighbours blared out Robbie Williams Millennium into the street and everyone went outside.

I remember Richard Madeley going on about stocking his cupboards on this morning because there would be a shortage.

Celebration wise, just like every other new year's eve . Can't believe it was 20 years ago!!

A complete anticlimax

I was 25 and had been qualified as a nurse for 2 years. Names were drawn as to who would be in charge of the ward that night, and it was me!!! I was a bit concerned as didn’t feel very experienced! As it turns out nothing untoward happened, but I do remember the hospital looked over a vast area of the city and the fireworks were amazing. The most I’ve ever seen. The sky was still smoky when we left the next morning! We were also given a mug which said I survived millennium night at the hospital I worked at.
A mug for a mug we said!

Sadly was a huge anticlimax for me as well.

Went to Blackfriars Bridge to watch the fireworks (only time as a life long Londoner I ever have gone to the river for NYE) it was absolutely mobbed - worryingly so - no access for emergency vehicles. It was just too busy.

Walked home, hit a few bars on route (if I remember correctly there was something about bars having extended opening hours?) and there was zero atmosphere in any of the places we went? Was home and in bed by 2am. I was 19 so being in bed by 2am on the biggest party night of the year said it all.

Overhyped, anticlimactic and a let down.

I was 21 and went to a house party as so many places were closed due to the high cost of staffing etc.

But not much different from any other NYE.

I remember it starting the thing for people having new year fireworks in their gardens.

I have a question about the Y2K thing. I’m sure there was lots of work done here to fix the problem, but surely there wasn’t the same level of preparation in every country in the world? So how come nothing happened anywhere at all...like in India of Africa?

I was 11, we went to my mum's friend's NYE party.

I do remember seeing all the different countries' fireworks on the BBC all day :) And being really impressed by the ones on the Eiffel tower and the Millennium wheel (aka London Eye).

Friend's NYE party was a bit better than usual because when it got to midnight we all went out on the street, joined up with a couple of their neighbours who were also having parties and sang Auld Lang Syne in a massive circle, which I thought was brilliant.

I remember it starting the thing for people having new year fireworks in their gardens

Sorry, but you are wrong there. People were setting rockets off at midnight way before NYE 1999.

Punchball read this www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/31/millennium-bug-face-fears-y2k-it-systems

Or this time.com/5752129/y2k-bug-history/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_term=history_technology&linkId=79846034

I think I went to my home town and ended up on the world’s worst pub crawl before first footing at some sheltered housing. I was 21 😂🤦‍♀️

I graduated with a degree In computing science but slightly too late to make any cash out of it though.

The media hype and lack of understanding at the time was ridiculous so people can’t really be blamed for not knowing what was actually happening or what the outcomes potentially were. We didn’t have the same access to information so googling and doing our own research wasn’t as easy. Most people will have read the hyperbole and thought no more about it other than a wee giggle when it all seemed to “fall flat”. There was an almost excitement about how badly things can go wrong. Like watching a car crash. And then it swerved and people were a bit put out.

Software systems used by banks etc will generally be international hence code all being written in English or thereabouts. So large corporations will have managed the issue internationally. I am sure continents such as Africa and India had skilled and experienced programmers as well. There will have been minor issues but we won’t have heard about them

In short it was enormously mediocre.

I was 20 but couldn’t go out because I was very ill in bed with flu. My mum woke me up to say happy new millennium at midnight... I said Meh and went back to sleep. It was totally unexciting.

I think it was the first year of a big, formal firework display from central London. Not from the London Eye though as, although that was made for the millennium, it wasn't ready. I think it was lying on its side, ha ha!

The fireworks were pretty awesome. I think that was the start of the NYE fireworks. Before that, people congregated in Trafalgar Square with a can of TNT cider and a bottle of Thunderbird....

"Sorry, but you are wrong there. People were setting rockets off at midnight way before NYE 1999."

Not to the extent that it happened after that year. Not where I live anyway.

I was at the riverside in Greenwich. The council thought Greenwich would be mobbed because of the time association so they put in place ticketed access to the town centre but completely ballsed it up. My boyfriend of the time within the ticketed area but wasn't allocated residents' tickets. He managed to get some somehow but it was a complete mess. And the town was practically empty on the evening.

Lots of people were worried things would stop working because of the millennium bug. As others have said it was all fine because of the prep that was done. I didn't work on the tech side but as a paralegal I helped a household name company work out its potential liability if everything turned to shit.