The annual New Year Gorham celebration rang in 2015 with food and festivities, then finished with a bang.

Revelers packed several events at venues around town and passes sold out early.

It was a “healthy, affordable night out,” said Virginia Wilder Cross, event founder and an organizer.

Cross said volunteers would meet on Thursday, Jan. 8, to begin planning next year’s celebration.

Blinking lanyards costing $5 were unique passes this year to all New Year events. Volunteers scrambled to provide additional passes after the lanyards sold out by noon on New Year’s Eve.

“We ran out of recycled buttons by 6 p.m.,” Cross said.

Cross said the spaghetti supper at the First Parish Church and ice skating at the University of Southern Maine ice arena were both packed.

The Wildlife Encounters at Shaw Gym was again popular with children and adults. A wallaby, a member of the kangaroo family, proved elusive as it hopped around the gym. Krista Butts of Wildlife Encounters in Rochester, N.H., even exhibited a 7-year-old American alligator weighing about 60 pounds.

Two-year-old Jude Paul even reached out to touch Monster, a black and white tegu, a lizard Sarah Cantwell of Wildlife Encounters carried into the audience.

At Gorham High School, banjo player Peter Mezoian drew applause performing in the lobby outside the main stage. Forrest Genthner, a sophomore at Saint Joseph’s College, partnered with Molly Hook, a University of Southern Maine sophomore, and they kicked off the New Year with dancing to Mezoian’s music.

Cross said the two stage shows filled the school’s auditorium to capacity.

“Audio Body-Techno Comedy,” she said, “completely awed” the audience. And Running With Scissors “had us rolling in the aisles with laughter,” she said.

Capping the evening’s events, fireworks outside the high school drew claps and cheers, Cross said.

Matt Paul of Gorham holds his 2-year-old son, Jude Paul, who is reaching out to touch a black and white tegu named Monster, a member of the lizard family, displayed by Sarah Cantwell of Wildlife Encounters during the New Year Gorham celebration in Shaw Gym on Dec. 31. Staff photos by Robert LowellThe New Year Gorham celebration even featured an American alligator. Krista Butts of Wildlife Encounters in New Hampshire displays a 7-year-old alligator named Cajun that intrigued a crowd of parents and children in Shaw Gym.