MEMPHIS, Tenn. — With only hours left before kissing 2022 goodbye, many chose to ring in the new year with a party on Beale Street, where thousands of people were expected to celebrate.
In addition to locals and Grizzlies fans visiting the entertainment district, FOX13′s reporter Jack Bilyeu, spoke to families from across the country and beyond, with one group traveling all the way from Australia to Bluff City.
“It is unbelievable,” Darren Beazley, an Australian who is visiting his in-laws in Lakeland, said of Memphis barbecue. “The best in the world.”
Beazley said he intended to ring in the New Year on Beale Street after the Grizzlies game ended.
FOX13 asked what he was most looking forward to about the celebration.
“The music and the ribs,” he said.
For other partiers, though, New Year’s on Beale was less about the food and more about the beverages.
“Getting drunk,” Memphian Brianna Hall said when asked about her plans for the evening.
Hall lives in Memphis, so she didn’t have to travel as far as some other partiers.
She said she visits Beale every New Year and was looking forward to seeing the crowd as the clock struck twelve.
“You haven’t seen anything yet, it’s about to be packed,” she said. “You think a Grizzlies game is packed, it’s about to be packed.”
For bars like Silky O’Sullivan’s, the New Year’s Crowds meant weeks of prep work, from ordering enough food and drink to building tents for live music.
Owner David Hooper said he was expecting an especially large crowd with the recent Liberty Bowl, plus Saturday and Sunday’s Grizzlies games.
“Our neighbors in Arkansas and Mississippi, people from all across the city, Germantown, Collierville, they will all come here to have fun and party on Beale Street,” he said. “It’s the heart of Memphis.”
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