No backpacks in Times Square

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Jim Spellman

CNN All-Platform Journalist

The crowds are really piling in here in Times Square. The revelers are ushered into individual viewing areas behind metal barriers. Each one of them holds about 2,500 people. It's a pretty good system. It's allows plenty of space between areas for the police, entertainers and media to move around.

As people arrive they are given a quick search and wanding with a hand-held metal detector. It is going pretty smoothly so far, though about one person in 20 seems to have broke one of the cardinal rules of New Years Eve in Time Square: NO BACKPACKS.

If you brought one you can't come in to the viewing areas. It's a little arbitrary, the police are letting in people with shopping bags and purses are OK but backpacks are a no-go.

But so far that seems to be the only hang up for partygoers here in Times Square.