Tonight was “The Big Night” at the Wex in Cadillac, where a New Year’s celebration was designed for the whole family…. with plenty of activities aimed toward the kids.

“It’s family friendly; we’ve got all kinds of great activities including darts, face painting, puppet making, board games, video games, dancing, great concession stand, and lots of other things,” Tara Horton, one of the organizers of The Big Night, told Local Edition.

“The Big Night” is a new event designed to help the community to welcome the new year. The party was created to fill a void left behind when it was announced that Cadillac’s annual First Night event wouldn’t be continuing into the new decade.

“We found out recently — a couple of months ago — that the city wasn’t going to hold First Night this year, for whatever reason,” said Horton, “We decided to pick up where First Night left off, and offer the community a great party for New Year’s Eve.”

“Picking up where First Night left off”is exactly what The Big Night did. Much like “First Night,” the event began with a Community Photo, and continued with a wide variety of family-friendly activities.

While the event may be new this year, organizers said they’re getting great feedback from the community.

“We’ve had some pretty good feedback,” Horton stated, “The kids are having a great time, they love getting their faces painted, they love the moon walk, and of course they love Dynamite the Clown… the ice skating rink is pretty busy right now, they’re just having a really good time. We’ve had a lot of happy faces walking around, and everybody seems to be enjoying themselves.”

While this is the first year for “The Big Night,” there are plans to continue holding the event in the future. Next year, the second annual Big Night will be held at the Wex.