Times Square New Year’s Eve will feature top talent, make history

On January 1, 2025By Littum

Although rain is in the forecast tonight for Times Square, where New York City’s globally celebrated New Year’s Eve ball drop takes place every year, the program should be amazing and history will also be made.

The 7-foot-tall illuminated “2025” numbers are currently on display at Broadway Plaza, between 46th and 47th Streets in Times Square. Visitors can see them up close and take memorable photos for holiday cards or social media. The figures will later be moved to One Times Square and illuminated during the iconic New Year’s Eve ball game to welcome 2025. (Photo by: Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

6:00 PM ET, the celebration will begin at the top of One Times Square – the building at the intersection of 42nd^n.d Street, Seventh Avenue and Broadway in the heart of Times Square – where the ball will be lit and raised, accompanied by special pyrotechnic effects.

Cast on ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” will include Rita Ora, Jonas Brothers, Megan Moroney, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, TLC and Carrie Underwood, while CNN’s “New Year’s Eve Live” will feature Mickey Guyton and Underwood, and Univision’s “Happy 2025!” will feature Greeicy, De La Ghetto and Kapo.

At 11:10 PM ET, New York City will host a 400th^th birthday celebration — it was first settled by French Huguenots transported there by the Dutch West India Company in 1624 — while Guyton will perform his version of John Lennon’s song, “Imagine,” at 11:55 PM ET.

At 11:59 PM ET, New York City Mayor Eric Adams will press the crystal button that signals the descent of the New Year’s Eve ball, leading the final 60-second countdown to New Year 2025 on One Times Square’s countdown stage.

At midnight, the lights are turned off on New Year’s Eve, while the numbers for 2025 will be illuminated high above Times Square. At the same time, 3,000 pounds of confetti—including thousands of wishes from relevelers around the world hoping for peace, love, good health and a better future—will be released from rooftops throughout Times Square.

Tonight will be the last night of the legendary, current New Year’s Eve ball falls: It will be exhibited next year in a museum at the newly restored One Times Square.

This 26-story building opened in 1904 as the newspaper’s headquarters, New York Times; The New Year’s Eve ball dropping ceremony has taken place here since 1907.

In 2022, Jamestown, the global real estate company that owns and manages One Times Square, launched a $500 million redevelopment of the building to become a 21st century.^St century visitor center. This redevelopment will open much of the building’s interior to the public for the first time in decades.

Michael Phillips, a principal, chairman and president of Jamestown, said in an interview with Forbes.com this week that the building will offer immersive experiences for visitors to enjoy; a museum showing the current New Year’s ball plus two previous ones; a viewing deck; function and VIP rooms; and a wedding chapel that he said will be Times Square’s equivalent of City Hall, New York’s marriage bureau in Lower Manhattan that conducts in-person, civil wedding ceremonies.

He said the building’s new features will begin opening next August and continue to do so gradually until the end of 2025.

Earlier this month, Jamestown launched Times Square Island, a new Fortnite island based on One Times Square’s annual New Year’s Eve celebration, bringing the ball drop celebration to Fortnite’s 650 million-plus players worldwide.