Preparations for the last new year's eve celebrations of the millennium are well underway across Northern Ireland.

And while thousands will be celebrating in pubs, clubs, houses and streets across the province, Belfast City Centre is expecting its biggest party ever.

Around 40,000 people poured into the centre to see a spectacular Halloween fireworks display by pyrotechnics wizard Christopher Berthonneau in October as a practice run for the millennium, and Belfast City Council is hoping even more people will come down to enjoy the new year celebrations.

The musical celebrations at the City Hall will be headlined by Belfast singer Brian Kennedy.

Fireworks

Fireworks will blast off the new year at the Waterfront Hall at Lanyon Place, where the display will reflect on the River Lagan.

Abba tribute group Bjorn Again will be the headline music act entertaining the crowds at the Waterfront.

Across the road in the recently restored historic covered St. George's Market a jazz and folk festival will be held.

Two huge screens will show part of an international 26-hour broadcast via the BBC, uniting millennium celebrations around the world.

Earlier on new year's eve there will be a re-enactment of 17th century Belfast in Hill Street.

Religious celebrations will be held at 1300 GMT on new years eve at an open-air service outside the City Hall and on 1 Jan 2000 the Waterfront Hall will host an interdenominational service.

The celebrations will continue into 1 Jan with two more open-air concerts at Belfast City Hall and Lanyon Place, and the jazz and folk festival at St George's Market.

There will also be a family funfair in Victoria Square, and evening of traditional music and dance at the Waterfront Hall.

'Excitement'

Celebrations on the first day of the new millennium will be topped off by another fireworks display at the Waterfront.

Belfast City Council Event manager Chris Waring said excitement about the celebrations is building up.

"Throughout the UK, Belfast is held up as one of the places to celebrate the millennium.

"I think the buzz about the city today and over the building of the stage has really built up into a last minute rush and panic and excitement, and I think people are saying Belfast is the place to be," he said.

Londonderry

Derry City's Guildhall Square will be the focus of the public millennium celebrations, where crowds will be entertained by Different Drums and Derry band The Whole Tribe Sings.

Different drums played in Omagh at the launch of the Millennium Festivals earlier this year.

Also giving free concerts in the city centre will be the Strabane band Atticus, NV, and the Humble Beez from Newry.

Slemish

Meanwhile, Ballymena Borough Council plans to celebrate the millennium new year's eve by lighting a beacon on Slemish Mountain in County Antrim, in tandem with the lighting of 2,800 beacons across the UK.

The beacon on the mountain, where Ireland's patron Saint Patrick is reputed to have tended sheep as a slave in 400AD, is to be lit at 1630 GMT at sundown, while beacons are lit at Ben Nevis and Edinburgh Castle in Scotland and on the River Thames in London.