About 12,000 fireworks are set to light up London’s sky when the clock strikes midnight on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, every corner of Edinburgh is filling up with Hogmanay revellers preparing to welcome the start of the new decade and enjoy the UK’s biggest street party.

Festivities are already in full swing – with explosive fireworks being set off from Edinburgh Castle – and approximately 100,000 visitors expected to attend the famous event.

DJ Mark Ronson will bring in the new year with an explosive set, after performances from Idlewild, Rudimental and Marc Almond across different stages throughout the city centre.

Early on Tuesday evening, crowds began gathering in Princess Street Gardens to watch presenters Ant and Dec take to the stage to introduce the big night.

Street theatre, circus acts and musical performances also took place up across more than a dozen streets, including the city’s main throughfare Princes Street and its adjacent gardens, while ceilidhs danced their way into the night in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.

The festivities began in the city on Monday as around 40,000 people joined a torchlit procession which culminated in them forming the shape of two humans reaching out a ‘hand of friendship’.

Meanwhile, London’s Met Police have urged anyone who doesn’t have a ticket to watch the display on the River Thames to go elsewhere as entry will not be permitted.

Tickets have sold out for this year, after more than 100,000 were bought ahead of tonight.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan told Sky News: ‘Hands on my heart they will be the best fireworks London has ever seen!’

The force are now asking anyone without a ticket to watch it on television rather than turn up and try their luck, adding there will be ‘thousands’ of other New Year celebrations in restaurants, bars, pubs and clubs across the capital.

Around 2,000 of the fireworks set off during the display will be fired from the London Eye, with the rest coming from barges which will moor in a central location along the River Thames.

Display director for the show, Darryl Fleming of Titanium Fireworks, has worked on the festivities ten times and said punters should expect something different this year.

He added: ‘From a technical and creative point of view, we are always trying to change things and see something that worked well the previous years, and then build on that for the following year.’

Large pyrotechnics shows will also take place in cities including Manchester, Cardiff, Newcastle, Inverness and Nottingham.

Cat Fortune, executive producer at events company Jack Morton, which is helping put on the display in the capital, said: ‘London New Year’s Eve is really about bringing people together and we want to celebrate the year ahead.

‘It is also a new decade this year, so that’s really exciting, and also events on London’s calendar this year are quite exciting, so we are making a nod towards that as well.’