I started in Second Life a bit over two years ago, so while the place was still all fresh and magical to me I got to see a fireworks show at Stage IV, if my memory serves me right. When you are new and might not have seen what SL can do towards simulating and improving on physical world fireworks it can be pretty wonderful.
Hopefully there will some professional quality SL fireworks displays around, I haven't checked yet, and those who might not usually want to do particle displays might pull them out of their inventories and find an appropriate place to set off what they have and hand out some copies of the free ones a show the new users how to make things go boom and make sparks in SL.
Folks putting on fireworks shows should keep in mind that some users are limited to 64 meter draw distance and design their displays accordingly.
Happy New Year, SL gang, drive safely.