Video of Spectacular New Year Celebration is from Qingdao not Shanghai or Beijing

A video of a spectacular light and sound show, apparently from when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 2021 is going viral across social media platforms with some captions stating that it is from Shanghai and some claiming that it is from Beijing, in China. The video shows a tall tower on a hillock near a water body, illuminated by a bright display of colourful lights and graphics also accompanied by a countdown on New Year’s eve. 

Fact Crescendo received a request on its 24×7 WhatsApp Factline number 904 905 3770 to verify the claim that it is from Shanghai. Archived Link

We also came across multiple posts across social media platforms with the above stated claims. Here is one such post: 

Facebook Link

We found that the video is indeed of News Year’s Eve celebrations but the claim is Partly False as the tower is actually located at Qingdao in China, not Beijing or Shanghai. Here’s how:

Fact Check Methodology

At first we ran a reverse image search after splitting the video in keyframes using the Invid-We Verify tool. We saw that the video has been uploaded a number of times by various users on YouTube over the last few days with captions stating that it is from Beijing.

From the language being spoken in the viral video and from the posts, it seemed that the video is indeed from China but we observed that the tower in the video does not resemble any of the towers in Beijing or Shanghai. 

Following this, we used a combination of the keyframes and relevant keywords and located a video news report by CCTV Video News Agency on their official YouTube Channel, uploaded on January 2, 2022 with the caption “Qingdao Stages Light, Fireworks Show to Welcome New Year.” This video has the same visuals as the viral video.

We checked images of the TV Tower at Qingdao and saw the resemblance. The TV tower is situated on a hillock, just like in the video and the area around it looks similar in this photograph on Getty Images website:

Getty Images Link

We also searched for a photograph of the tower clicked after dark to confirm:

Pinterest Link

Conclusion

From the above evidences, it is clear that the video of New Year’s Eve celebration is from Qingdao in China and not Beijing or Shanghai. The claim is Partly False.