How will the UK be celebarating New Year?

Traditionally, New Year’s Eve is a day where large crowds of people get together to mark the beginning of the coming year. Celebrations take place in household settings, outside firework displays, pubs, restaurants, bars, and many other environments. With COVID-19 restrictions currently in place across the country, there are limited ways to celebrate the end of 2020.

New Year’s Eve will look very different this year. The government has scrapped the initial five-day relaxation period for large parts of South East England which has been classified in Tier 4 and has only relaxed the restrictions on Christmas Day for the rest of England, Scotland and Wales. In addition to this, other parts of the UK have just moved into tier 4 on Boxing Day. In short, New Year’s celebrations are only to take place with members within your household.

At Spark Emotions we conduct a monthly Mood of the Nation survey of 1000+ people in the UK, to understand sentiment during these unprecedented times. This month we focus in on how the UK is feeling about New Year’s Eve.

New Year’s Day Plans

Findings from our survey suggest that consistent with Christmas plans, most of UK adults (80%) plan to either stay in or not celebrate New Years at all this year. Over 35’s (85%) are more likely to shun celebrations and adhere to government restrictions than those under 35 (67%). 1 in 10 adult’s plan to visit their family or friends on New Year’s day, whilst an even smaller proportion plan to host a celebration. With most adults planning to stay in for New Year’s Eve this year, people are looking for ways to celebrate and make it special at home. Retailers will have to adapt to promote and inspire shoppers with ‘at home’ celebratory packages and speciality food and drink.

Spending will mostly remain the same

In comparison to Christmas where people plan to spend less this year, three quarters (74%) of UK adults plan to spend the same amount of money on food and drink for New Year’s compared to previous years. Approximately 1 in 5 (22%) adults plan to spend less than they usually would and close to 30% of these are currently or have been previously furloughed. Retailers will have to target those on a tighter budget with ‘value for money’ and promotional products.

How can we help

At Spark Emotions, we specialise in helping our clients grow by truly understanding their customers. We are a global market research agency that combines consumer psychology and industry expertise to generate actionable insights. Through our trends and foresight business unit, we are able to help you understand the macro effects on behaviour to help you build customer-led propositions that are proven to deliver business growth.

If you would like to see the full December Mood of the Nation, get in touch below