Bondi might have been uncharacteristically quiet on New Year's Eve - there were more cops than revellers, said one local - but on the first day of 2015, it was anything but.

Heaving with sunbathers, surfers, swimmers and morning-after-the-night-before hangovers, the beach was a teeming mass by midday, when Icebergs' renowned New Year's Day party got underway.

The $400-a-head celebration taps into the trend to forego year-end farewells in favour of new-year welcomes.

With Bondi a "daytime suburb", said Icebergs' Maurice Terzini, the sun-filled club-style party has a natural home in its Bondi beach view nook.

Stylist Pip Edwards and actor Alex Dimitriades were among the first to arrive for the party. Dan Single, John Ibrahim and Sneaky Sound System's Connie Mitchell were also in the glamorous crowd.

Erin Gascoine, Kylie Minogue's former publicist, travelled from Byron Bay for the day.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," she said.

Looking out to the world-class view, party co-host "Black" Angus McDonald of Sneaky Sound System said the event couldn't fail to do well. "You can't mess it up," he said, fresh from playing at an event in Melbourne.

At Rose Bay, Paige Laurie, the only daughter of Walmart heiress Nancy Walton and her husband Bill Laurie, tried in vain to slip into Catalina unnoticed for its legendary New Year's Day party.

Laurie was spotted on the nearby jetty having just disembarked from her parent's superyacht Secret. The $200m vessell drew attention for getting a prime position off Point Piper on Wednesday in time for the New Year's Eve fireworks.

Bondi locals Dave Holt and Moira Hughes described the area as "a ghost town" on Wednesday night.

"It was just incredibly quiet," said Mr Holt. "The Beach Road Hotel was dead.

"You'd think it would be huge on New Year's Eve. The hotel's usually very busy on Friday and Saturday."

Beach Road Hotel licensee and general manager Ben Pearce said New Year's Eves were generally quiet, but "it was dead [this year], we closed at 10pm".

Beck Ackland, accommodations manager at Ravesi's bar and hotel in Bondi attributed the slump to the decision to cancel the Shore Thing music festival this year, which usually draws large crowds to Bondi beach on the night.

Bars and hotels citywide reported their quietest New Year's Eve in a long time. Locals said streets were a "ghost town" on Wednesday night.

As well as Bondi, the number of visitors at pubs in Surry Hills and Leichhardt was about one-fifth of the normal New Year's Eve crowds.

"We had about 20 or 30 people in here, and it should have been 50 to 100 at least," said Dale Bonczyk, manager at the Crown Hotel in Surry Hills.

Anthony Martinez, who was working at the Leichhardt Hotel on New Year's Eve, noticed a similar drop compared to previous years.

"There are normally 60 or so [on New Year's Eve], but we had around 10 this year," he said.

"Around this part we're usually pretty quiet on New Year's Eve, but there were a lot less people this year."

Early numbers are suggesting people might have shirked the Sydney Harbour fireworks too.

"Over a million" people watched the harbour displays this New Year's Eve, Sydney's lord mayor Clover Moore said on Thursday, which is a lower ballpark figure than the expected 1.5 million people, and nearly half the crowds of two million estimated by Ms Moore at last year's January 1 press conference.

The fall in numbers comes despite the government's decision to extend 1.30am lockouts at venues in Sydney's entertainment district to 3am on New Year's Eve.

It follows Prime Minister Tony Abbott's announcement on December 23 that Australia's terrorism threat level has been raised from medium to high, although Premier Mike Baird said that the lower numbers were unrelated in a New Year's Day press conference.

"Whether numbers were slightly up or down I don't really think that's an indicator [of fear]," said Mr Baird.

"People make their own plans according to their own circumstances."

With Andrew Hornery