Big Bang: Antenna Theater’s Sausalito Millennium Celebration (1999)
While the world counted down to the year 2000, Sausalito officially chose to celebrate something much bigger: all of time since the Big Bang. The idea came from Antenna Theater, which wrote the proclamations, planned a floating water clock and staged the town’s waterfront party on New Year’s Eve 1999. This is what was proclaimed, planned and billed. What happened on the night itself is not recorded in any source we could find.
Quick answer
What was the Big Bang celebration in Sausalito?
Big Bang was Antenna Theater’s millennium celebration on the Sausalito waterfront on New Year’s Eve 1999. At Antenna’s suggestion, the city proclaimed it would celebrate all of time since the Big Bang, not just 2,000 years. The night was billed with fire eaters, stilt walkers, giant puppets and a water clock.
Why celebrate 2,000 years?
Antenna had a better number in mind. Its AllTime idea counts time from the Big Bang rather than from a year zero, and the company wrote dates that way, with the billions of years in front: “12B 1999” meant 12 billion years and the year 1999. The billions figure changes from page to page, from 12B in 1999 to 13.7B later. The full system is explained in AllTime, the calendar counted from the Big Bang.
Hardman’s line in the 1999 press releases was a joke with a point: “The next millennium will be the first millennium we will know which millennium it actually is.” His fuller case against celebrating 2,000 years is quoted in Sands of Time, the beach timeline Antenna toured the same years.
A small town that thinks big: the proclamations
On June 1, 1999, the Sausalito City Council voted unanimously for the plan. Antenna’s release says “The proclamation was initially proposed by ANTENNA”. The text, signed by Mayor Amy Belser, begins with civic pride: “WHEREAS the City of Sausalito has acquired the meritorious reputation of a small town that thinks big”.
Its key clause reads: “WE HEREBY PROCLAIM that the City of Sausalito will not only celebrate the passing of 2000 years, but will celebrate All Time, defined as all of the time that has passed from the Big Bang until the present day, or approximately 12 billion years!”
| Date | Body | What it said |
|---|---|---|
| June 1, 1999 | Sausalito City Council, unanimously | The city would celebrate “All Time” and support a floating water clock |
| October 19, 1999 | Marin County Board of Supervisors, unanimously | The county would “celebrate all of time, 12 billion years, on December 31, 1999” |
| February 15, 2000 | City of Sausalito | “ANTENNA DAY”, for the Millennium Celebration |
The Clock of All Time
The centrepiece was to be a clock. The proclamation backed “the construction of a monumental Water Clock to float in the San Francisco Bay off the shores of our city.” It continued: “This ‘Clock of All Time’ will inspire and educate the citizens of our community”. Antenna’s releases promised jets of water “up to 75 feet in the air” and that the clock “will perform at midnight December 31, 1999”.
The size grew between announcements. The June 1999 release gave a diameter of 100 feet; the October release said 150 feet. Neither figure describes what was built.
Antenna’s later account, on Antenna’s Buy Some Time page, is more modest: “ANTENNA created a large prototype of one such Clock Of AllTime. This clock was designed to float on Richardson Bay just off Sausalito’s shores.” When “finished in earnest”, it would be “powered by the tidal action of the bay.” The full 100- to 150-foot clock stayed a plan, and no source gives the prototype’s size.
New Year’s Eve on the waterfront
Two days before the night, on December 29, 1999, the San Francisco Chronicle’s New Year’s Eve listings carried “THE BIG BANG: A SPECTACULAR WATERFRONT PARTY”. The listing said “Antenna Theater presents two stages of live entertainment, stilt walkers, masked dancers and the giant, illuminated ‘Clock of Time’ sculpture,” from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. in downtown Sausalito.
Antenna’s chronology adds the rest of the bill: “A millennium celebration with fire eaters, stilt walkers, giant puppets, a sound and light show, and a giant performing water clock counting off all 13 billion years of time since the Big Bang.” The puppets belong to a long line of giant puppets in parades and pageants, and the stilt walkers and fire eaters to the history of street theatre.
The party replaced Antenna’s own fundraiser that year: “12B 1999 Fundraiser Replaced by Sausalito Millennium Celebration.” The company’s thank-you page lists the city, the county, the Sausalito Yacht Club, the National Park Service, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Marin County Sheriff Marine Patrol among its supporters.
That is where the record stops. A listing shows what was promised, not what happened. No review, eyewitness account or photo caption describes the crowd, the weather, the performers or what the clock did at midnight.
Antenna Day
Afterward, the town said thank you. On February 15, 2000, Mayor Sandra Bushmaker presented Chris Hardman with a proclamation of “ANTENNA DAY” at a City Council meeting, “in recognition of the company’s successful efforts in presenting the Millennium Celebration on December 31, 12B 1999”.
Its wording also settles a date puzzle. Antenna’s chronology files Big Bang under “2000”, the year it ushered in, but every account written at the time puts the party on New Year’s Eve 1999.
The year of the Big Bang argument
The party had a backdrop. On August 11, 1999, according to the National Center for Science Education’s report on the Kansas science standards vote, the Kansas state Board of Education adopted standards that deleted items “including the ‘Big Bang Theory’.” The vote was 6-4.
At least one physics teacher noticed. Mark Shapiro, writing to a list of physics teachers in a November 1999 PHYS-L post about the BIG BANG Party, told those dismayed by Kansas they “can take heart. The City of Sausalito and the County of Marin have decided to celebrate the new millennium by holding a BIG BANG Party.”
There was also the calendar quarrel. Scientific American noted in December 1999 that by strict count the millennium would not end until December 31, 2000, so Sausalito, like most of the world, partied a year early. Antenna’s answer was that the whole count was the wrong one. The same deep-time thinking runs through what a deep time walk is.
Frequently asked questions
Why was it called Big Bang?
Antenna asked the town to celebrate all of time since the universe began, not 2,000 years. The Sausalito City Council proclaimed it on June 1, 1999.
Was the giant water clock built?
Antenna announced a floating clock 100, later 150, feet across. It says it built a large prototype for the celebration.
Did the county back it?
Yes. The Marin County Board of Supervisors passed a matching proclamation on October 19, 1999.
Is there an account of the night?
No. The record is the proclamations, Antenna’s releases and thank-you page, and a newspaper listing published two days before.
Big Bang is listed in Antenna Theater’s full production chronology. For older ways of making a spectacle from light and shadow, see the history of shadow puppetry.