Almost 200 new Waterford Crystals to join 2,500 on Times Square's New Year's Eve ball

Event organizers test the New Year's Eve Ball ahead of the official Times Square celebration in New York. Photo: AP/Frank Franklin II

Just before last night's New Year's Eve celebrations in New York, almost 200 new Waterford crystals joined over 2,000 sparkling triangles covering the ball that drops over the city's Times Square every year.

"We're here today replacing 192 of the Waterford crystal triangles on that ball behind me with a new design, 'the Gift of Wisdom,'" said Jeffrey Strauss, president of Countdown Entertainment, ahead of the ceremony.

"It's represented by a wheel with these petals of knowledge growing ever forward."

Each year the geodesic sphere, which measures 3.65m in diameter and weighs more than five tonnes, gets 192 new crystal facets that represent themes for the new year such as happiness, goodwill, harmony, serenity, kindness and wonder. 

The ball is studded with 2,688 intricate crystal panels that range in length from 12cms to 15cms.

For the second year in a row, New Year's Eve in Times Square was a scaled-back event, with organizers encouraging spectators to attend a virtual show. 

In-person attendance, usually about 60,000 before the pandemic, was capped at 15,000 due to the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

But the worldwide audience was still expected to remain massive.

"We're going to have more than a billion revelers around the world joining us on TV and on the internet celebrating," said Jeffrey Strauss. 

"It's the one moment where we all come together, even if it's just for 60 seconds as we count down towards 2022."

Reuters