Downtown’s Wilshire Grand will have a bright New Year’s Eve countdown

Grand Park’s annual New Year’s Eve countdown won’t be the only light show in Downtown this year. The Financial District’s Wilshire Grand Center, which opened to the public in June, will ring in the new year with a light show that makes use of the almost 2.5 miles of LED lights that run up the side of the 73-story tower, as well as those covering the glassy “crown” atop the building.

A release from StandardVision, which created the light show for the Wilshire Grand, says the LED extravaganza will begin at 6 p.m. on January 31, when the “vertical spine” of the tower will light up “incrementally in perfect synchronization with the passage of time,” with flashes on the hour of what the big midnight reveal will be.

One minute before midnight, a countdown clock will appear on both sides of the crown of the skyscraper, and “at midnight, a surprise grand finale will usher in the New Year.”

StandardVision predicts the light show will be visible from at least a 15-mile radius around Downtown.

StandardVision spokesman Lasse Glassen says that while no footage of the show is available beforehand, some elements of the New Year’s Eve countdown will be similar to those StandardVision arranged for the building’s opening this summer, as seen in the video below.