Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's 1999

By Jill Smolowe

Here's the choice. Come Dec. 31, 1999, you can sit around harrumphing that it's amateur night. That those out celebrating the millennium are no doubt the very same people who can't even spell it. (Two Ls, two Ns.) You can work yourself into a froth about how the calendar change promises only to render every check in your checkbook obsolete and produce a baby boomlet of Millies and Millards. As you down a glass of warm buttermilk before bed, you can note ! with satisfaction that the year is off to a bad start: ABC says Two Thousand, CNN says Twenty Hundred. Then you can fall asleep counting millennial sheep.

Or you can acknowledge that this is the New Year's Eve to beat all New Year's Eves. That millenniums roll around only once every 1,000 years. That this is only the second chance in recorded history for a blowout of this kind, which makes Kahoutek an annoyingly frequent caller by comparison. That you want to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated, no-chance- to-do-it-again event. In a word, you can party.

As choices go, this should not be a hard one. Already, party lovers from New York City to Paris to Tokyo are booking rooms, making reservations and hatching plans for the mega-night. Those who don't start planning now may find themselves, on the night of nights, all dressed up with no place to go. And that would be quite a downer -- sort of like watching all the nines on your car odometer roll over into zeros and having no one to share it with.

So what if it's still more than seven years away? Grand ideas don't take shape overnight. Just ask the 6,000 members of the Millennium Society. Founded by American college students, this group of youngsters first began dreaming and scheming about New Millennium's Eve back in 1979. The society, which boasts a worldwide membership, already has an agreement to charter the Queen Elizabeth 2 (assuming she's seaworthy) to transport 1,750 people from New York City to Alexandria, Egypt. By ground, the celebrators will continue on to the environs of Cairo to toast the millennium at the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Strangle any thoughts of crashing this one: invitations to the Great Pyramid blowout were mailed ages ago. The list includes anyone the society has ever honored as one of its 10 Most Inspiring People of the Year. (You remember: Bob Geldof '85. Boris Becker '86. Paul McCartney '90. Whitney Houston '91.) Interestingly, the people quickest to respond have all been well over 35, among them First People George and Barbara and Ronald and Nancy. Comedian George Burns, America's seniormost party animal, RSVP'ed with the request "Can I bring a date?"

For members who can't make the extravaganza in Giza (the estimated price tag is $10,000 a head), the society will offer satellite-linked parties at sites in all 24 time zones around the globe. Among the locations being scouted: Stonehenge, the Eiffel Tower, the Acropolis, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China and Red Square. Who will provide the entertainment? Says society executive director Carol Treadwell: "Prince put himself on the short list with his song 1999." Sample verse: "If U didn't come 2 party/ don't bother knocking on my door." The round-the-globe revelry will go round the clock until all party-goers cross the millennium threshold. Fun apart, the hoopla will serve a worthy cause. The society aims to raise $75 million from the parties that night to fund international student exchanges. (If that sounds optimistic, remember that Live Aid brought in $72 million.)

Other millennial entrepreneurs are thinking beyond the big night. In Atlanta advertising consultant William Lower is wooing corporations and foundations in hopes of bankrolling a global election that would choose an Honorary World President for the year 2000. Philadelphia officials are trying to launch a "New Neighbors in the New Century" campaign that would promote cross- cultural communication and bring national leaders together to address Big Issues. The City of Brotherly Love also wants to call attention to the contributions made by Philadelphia inventors during the second millennium: the matchbook, the eraser-topped pencil, the computer and, most unforgettably, the revolving door.

In New York City publicists and event planners are preparing what has the potential to be the biggest New Year's extravaganza of all. Barnett Lipton, president of Eventures, which staged the welcoming party for the media at the 1992 Democratic Convention, says that by combining satellite communications with cyberspace technology, it may be possible to create a virtual-reality experience on a global scale. "Who says you can't be in two places at once?" Lipton asks. "Using virtual reality, we'll be able to celebrate with 5 billion people in a room at one time -- provided there are enough hors d'oeuvres and we don't run out of champagne."

Five billion people? All in one room? Better to invite the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to tea. If a galactic gathering isn't your speed, there are lots of cozier options. The trick is to dream early -- then act fast. As it is, 30 people with foresight have already booked New Year's reservations at Manhattan's Rainbow Room, where they will enjoy dining, dancing and romance at "well under $1,000" a person, according to managing partner Joe Baum. At the Waldorf-Astoria, 100 people have secured spots for the ballroom festivities, including a man who called all the way from Germany. Another on ^ the list, airline pilot James Hoogerwerf of Atlanta, reserved seating for eight, inspired by a novel he read in which a bunch of World War II soldiers agree to spend New Year's Eve at the Waldorf if they survive the war.

In France, Euro Disneyland's fanciest hotel is already booked solid, and word is out that the Concorde is planning to hold a New Year's party at 60,000 ft. (18,290 m). Japan's largest travel agency is hoping to sail six cruise ships into the South Pacific toward the international dateline, where passengers will be among the first humans to witness the dawning of the new millennium.

Most cruise ships and hotels say they haven't yet got around to planning their millennium festivities. "We're worried about the cruise business this year, much less 1999," snapped a reservations manager at Princess Cruises in Los Angeles. At Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, bookings are not accepted beyond May 1993, and no thought has been given to fin-de-millenaire entertainment. But don't be discouraged by such myopia; things can change at the mere drop of an inquiry. In 1983 when the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City's Times Square was still under construction, screenwriter Ed Woodyard phoned to book a room for Dec. 31, 1999. A Marriott official divined the potential publicity bonanza in the request and promptly offered Woodyard a complimentary four-room suite. Woodyard was soon immortalized on the Tonight show with perhaps the first millennial joke: Come that day in 1999, Johnny Carson predicted, Woodyard will be kept waiting in the Marriott lobby for 45 minutes because his room isn't ready yet.

Speaking of Times Square, don't rule it out. Rock-'n'-oldster Dick Clark, who will turn 70 in 1999, plans to be on hand, reporting the action for television audiences. "That would be nice," he says. "It would indicate I'm still ambulatory." Tama Starr, president of Artkraft Strauss, the company that has been building and lowering the New Year's Eve ball in Times Square since 1908, promises that the millennium ball will be bigger and brighter and more spectacular than ever. "There will be more strobe lights and maybe a hologram," she says. "Lots of dazzle and flash."

That thought may give you pause, but consider this: you've got seven years to find a date and make yourself presentable. "There is still plenty of time to coordinate your hair with your makeup," soothes fashion designer Dianne Brill. A night owl, Brill is planning the outfit she will wear to usher in the ) year 2000. Her rule of thumb: "Overdress, but be comfy."

One more bit of advice: Relax. However you spend Millennium Eve, you can't really go wrong. After all, humankind has been down this path only once before -- and it's not likely anyone did anything so memorable the first time round. So to recap: You can sit home pondering new names for 20th Century Fox and making earnest millennium resolutions. Or you can plan early, play hard and party late. Whatever you decide, have a nice millennium.

With reporting by Wendy Cole/New York and Dan Cray/Los Angeles