First Night USA is an initiative of First Night, Inc. – a private nonprofit organization that annually presents the First Night Boston Festival of the Arts, the oldest and largest festival of its kind in North America. The mission of First Night, Inc. is to build community and celebrate diversity through the arts.

First Night, Inc. has produced the First Night Boston Festival of the Arts since 1976, when a group of local artists and residents first organized a celebration offering an alternative to traditional New Year’s Eve revelry. The First Night Boston Festival annually showcases the work of 1,000 artists in 200 performances and exhibits at 35 indoor and outdoor venues located across the downtown area on New Year’s Eve. This signature Boston event typically attracts about one million people from throughout the region and beyond. Highlights of the annual celebration include an afternoon Family Festival at the Hynes Convention Center, a Grand Procession down Boylston Street, colossal ice sculptures that dot the cities parks and plazas, and fireworks displays over the Boston Common at 7 pm and over the Boston Harbor at midnight.

At the heart of First Night, Inc. is the First Night Neighborhood Network, a year-round outreach and arts education program. Each year, 1,500 children and teenagers participate in visual and performing arts workshops led by professional artists/teachers and conducted in collaboration with over 40 locally-based partners, including community centers, recreation facilities, after-school programs, and day camps. The finished works created through this program are shared in the communities where they originate and at the First Night Boston Festival on December 31.

Through an entrepreneurial business initiative, First Night Productions, First Night, Inc. plans and produces public festivals for organizations and agencies that are starting, expanding, or revitalizing public programs of their own. First Night Productions provides client services ranging from consulting to planning to producing events.