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ZURICH

How to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Zurich 2023

Zurich offers a wide and varied selection of ways to bring in 2024 with a bang.

Published: 29 December 2023 09:34 CET
How to celebrate New Year's Eve in Zurich 2023
There are many ways to ring in the new year in Zurich. Photo by cottonbro studio from Pexels.

Silvesterzauber

If you’re looking to save a buck, the Silvesterzauber open folk festival is a great way to ring in 2024.

The festival, which attracts over 150,000 festivalgoers, will feature a traditional firework display in Zurich’s city centre in addition to a range of food stalls, bars, and music around the lake basin. Entry to the festival is free.

For those looking to kickstart the new year with a touch of sustainability, you can register with the festival at [email protected] and help make it environmentally friendlier by lending your recycling skills.

LiechtTräum

For those on the hunt for a more unique – and quieter – way to mark the turn of the year, we recommend going for a stroll around the city this New Year’s Eve.

As part of LiechtTräum, local artists have transformed six landmarks – the Grossmünster, Fraumünster, Church of St. Peter, Stadthaus, Stadthausquai and Opera House – into glowing works of art.

You can admire the light displays on New Year’s Eve from 5pm to 3am. If your celebrations take you elsewhere, you can still see the light show on January 1st and 2nd from 5pm to 11pm.

Dance the night away

Though we may be well on our way to 2024, the Silvester Party held at Zurich’s iconic X-TRA will transport you back in time – at least musically.

Dance into the new year with tunes from the 90s and 2000s and some of the most popular hits of the 2010s.

We recommend snagging your tickets early to save money (late bird tickets cost 5 Swiss francs more). Doors open to anyone aged 18 and over at 10pm on New Year’s Eve and tickets cost 46.30 Swiss francs.

If the 90s aren’t quite your jam, we suggest checking out the biggest Latin music New Year’s Eve event in Zurich at Komplex 457.

Doors open at 10pm and tickets cost 45 Swiss francs apiece. 

Uetliberg

Zurich’s Uetliberg is not only a popular summertime destination for locals, but it also makes for a great winter hike on New Year’s Eve and can be reached on foot in just an hour from the city.

Alternatively, hop on the S-Bahn train which takes you from the city centre to the mountain. Once up there, you can still enjoy many hikes or bike rides if waiting for the fireworks show is a tad on the boring side or grab a snack at one of the mountain restaurants (though you may need to pre-book).

We recommend setting off early to snag a good spot as it will get busy.

Pub-crawl

Join Zurich Together, which brings together people from diverse backgrounds in and around the Zurich area, on Meetup and head to the New Years Eve party at Lady Hamilton’s Pub free of charge.

Doors will open from 7pm for members of the group and to the public at 10pm.

Alternatively, if a group setting is not your cup of tea, you can also swing by the Oliver Twist Pub.

Located in Zurich’s Old Town, the Oliver Twist Pub is the place to be for New Year’s if you’re looking for a cosy, laidback evening or just fancy a casual chat and pint.

The pub will open its doors at 8pm.

Cinema

While this may not be the obvious choice when mulling New Year’s Eve activities, what better time is there to see an upcoming movie minus the crowds?

On New Year’s Eve, you’ll be able to tune into an array of flicks from dramas like Priscilla to action-packed Aquaman and domestic Film Bon Schuur Ticino.

The best part? You can still stroll past Lake Zurich to catch the firework show at midnight.

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ZURICH

Growth spurt: What Zurich needs to do to accommodate 2 million residents

Switzerland's biggest city Zurich is becoming more densely populated. With the population expected to pass the 2 million mark in the coming years authorities are devising plans to make it liveable for new residents.

Published: 29 April 2024 15:08 CEST
Growth spurt: What Zurich needs to do to accommodate 2 million residents

At the end of 2023, over 1.6 million people lived in Zurich, Switzerland’s most populous canton.

But this number is far from static.

The population is continuing to grow — so much so, that it will reach the 2-million mark in the coming years, cantonal authorities said in a press release.

This means an increase of around 450,000 people within the next two decades — a 28-percent growth rate, which is “significantly higher than the Swiss average.”

The primary reason for this hike, accounting for 49 percent of the increase, is immigration, followed by births (44 percent) and, to a lesser degree (7 percent), people moving to Zurich from other Swiss regions

On one hand, this is good news because “it is evidence of the canton’s attractiveness and economic prosperity,” authorities pointed out.

On the other, however, this demographic evolution will create a number of new problems and exacerbate the already existing ones.

That is why “strategic decisions are needed on how to handle challenges facing various areas,”  cantonal officials said.

‘Dealing with consequences’

With this ‘growth spurt,’ Zurich will experience many of the same challenges as Switzerland on the whole will, as demographers are expecting the country’s population to swell to 10 million (from the current 9 million) people in the coming years. 

Just as the federal government has started to think about the best ways to prepare the country’s infrastructure for the growing numbers, Zurich’s authorities too will be “shaping this growth” and “dealing with its consequences.”

To achieve this goal, they have launched the ‘Growth 2050” project to begin in the summer, which will  examine “which approach is most suitable for strategically addressing the challenges ahead,” according to the press release.

What exactly does this mean?

While the project’s findings will not be made public until 2027, authorities will have to ensure that Zurich’s infrastructure, such as housing, public transport, as well as school and healthcare systems, will not crumble under pressure, but be able to function optimally — from both the financial and practical perspectives — in the new context.

While all these areas are important, in Zurich’s case, housing appears to be a particular problem as more residents move into the canton.

With  tens of thousands of foreign nationals having settled in Zurich in the past few years, for instance, affordable housing had become scarcer — a situation that has continued to deteriorate and is expected to grow worse as more residents continue to arrive in the future.

READ ALSO: Zurich hit by affordable housing shortage amid record-high immigration

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