NYE Party Planner

The 12 best ways to celebrate New Year's Eve around Dallas-Fort Worth

The fireworks at Reunion Tower will once again be the culmination of New Year's Eve celebrations in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Photo courtesy of Reunion Tower

Somehow, we have made it to the end of another challenging year. New Year's Eve in Dallas-Fort Worth always includes a nice variety of events, letting kids and adults alike let loose, let go of the past year, and let out a yell during the countdown to midnight. Below are some of the best options to bring in 2022 in style.

Looking for a restaurant or bar for New Year's Eve dining? That list is here. Stay tuned for top New Year's Day brunches.

Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden presents Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden Noon Year’s Eve Celebration
The Dallas Arboretum will give kids a fun New Year's Eve option with their Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden Noon Year’s Eve Celebration. Guests can enjoy the excitement of the celebration without staying up till midnight with a Noon Year’s Eve ball drop and winter STEM activities.

Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark presents Epic Family New Year
The Epic Waters Crew will be sending off 2021 and ringing in 2022 with Epic Family New Year. The event at Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark in Grand Prairie will feature circus and aerial performances, hula dancing, interactive games, and more. There will also be a special Hawaiian themed dinner, including a pig on a spit, pulled pork sliders, baby back ribs, coconut shrimp, and mini pineapple upside down cupcakes.

The Exchange presents 2022 New Year's Eve Celebration
The Exchange, the new food hall in the AT&T Discovery District, will present a New Year’s Eve tasting package. Admission includes tastings from 13 different chefs/kitchens, two drink tickets, a DJ and photo wall, and balloon drop at midnight with complimentary champagne. Vendors include Revolver Taco, Rise N Thyme, Zalat Slices, Monkey King Noodle Co., and more. The district will also host a free outdoor party on the plaza, featuring musical performances, a live countdown on the media wall, a photo booth, aerialists, and party favors for the first 500 guests.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents New Year's Eve
The Dallas Symphony’s tribute to the Viennese tradition returns to Meyerson Symphony Center. The audience can toast the New Year with lively waltzes from the Strauss dynasty, honoring the most prestigious of New Year’s musical traditions. They can then stay afterward to ring in the New Year at the exclusive Meyerson ‘Til Midnight after-party.

Dave & Buster's presents New Year's Eve Party
Dave & Buster’s will welcome DJ Earworm as the headliner of their New Year's Eve Party in the all new Spotlight Lounge at the Dallas location. Every ticket will also include a $20 Power Card for guests to enjoy on all the games on the midway, and the latest Virtual Reality experience will be set to free play all night. Chef-curated menu items will be available to order and the bar will be running happy hour drink special pricing all night. Guests are encouraged to dress up, as there will also be roaming photographers and costumed characters to pose with, plus casino gaming, a music video dance party, and more.

Irving Cares presents New Year's Eve Party
Irving Cares will present their inaugural New Year's Eve Party, a signature event to ring in the new year. There will be cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and live music provided by Ricki Derek and his 16-piece band, followed by current hits played by DJ Melodies & Memories and a champagne toast as Irving celebrates the arrival of 2022 at Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas.

Legacy Hall presents New Year’s Eve Cabaret Soirée
Legacy Hall in Plano is ringing in 2022 with a New Year’s Eve Cabaret Soirée, complete with live music, a balloon drop at midnight, a champagne toast, and more. Live 90 will play music throughout the evening while guests can enjoy mixes by DJ Yuna and DJ Cantu on the second and third floors. Legacy Hall’s three floors will all have something exciting for attendees, such as can-can dancers, photo opps, and a cirque performer. Craft cocktails will be available for purchase at multiple bars, and 20 eateries will be serving up delicious bites. All guests must purchase a ticket or make a table reservation to attend the event.

Four Day Weekend New Year's Eve Party
People on both sides of Dallas-Fort Worth can enjoy Four Day Weekend's end-of-the-year show. Both the Dallas and Fort Worth events will feature the hilarious interactive comedy show, a cocktail-style dinner catered by Reata, a ticket to a future Four Day Weekend performance, champagne toast, and party favors.

The Statler presents New Year’s Eve Black & White Party
The Statler's New Year’s Eve Party will be a re-creation of Truman Capote’s legendary 1966 "Party of the Century." In addition to complimentary Champagne at midnight and hors d’oeuvres, there will be a full casino experience. Each guest will receive $10,000 worth of casino chips to play the night away. Tickets can be purchased individually or by tables of either 4 or 8 people and include bottle service, party favors, and more.

ArtPark presents New Year's Eve Celebration
ArtPark, the beer garden and restaurant at Trinity Groves, features green turf, lawn games, and drinks poured from shipping container bars. Ticket holders for their New Year's Eve party get access to a VIP area stocked with food, desserts, and special cocktails. Tickets include all food and drinks, and a goodie bag filled with ArtPark swag. As a bonus, guests will have the perfect vantage point to enjoy...

Reunion Tower presents Over the Top NYE
The sixth annual Over The Top NYE fireworks show will feature a new element, a 225-drone light show that will join the 5,000 pyrotechnic special effects and 259 LED lights that promise to make the 360-degree, panoramic fireworks spectacular the most memorable one since it first started lighting up the Dallas skyline in 2016. There is no on-site viewing at Reunion Tower. Residents are encouraged to watch the show from other nearby viewing locations. NBC 5 will broadcast the show starting at 11:30 pm.

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Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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