New Year’s Eve Times Square Ball Drop Goes Virtual, Will It Have Financial Impact On NYC?

The Coronavirus has claimed another annual event as one of its victims, as the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop in Times Square will officially be going virtual this year.

In a press release, the Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment, who co-produce the event each year, announced that because of the ongoing pandemic, the celebration would go virtual—meaning no crowds of revelers at the New York City landmark area.

The event is now being described as “A virtually enhanced celebration that brings Times Square and the Ball to you digitally no matter where you are, scaled-back and socially distanced live elements still to be determined, and an extremely limited group of in-person honorees, socially distanced, who will reflect the themes, challenges and inspirations of 2020.”

This is only the latest major holiday event in New York City that is now changing how it will go on, with Macy’s previously announcing plans to make the Thanksgiving Day Parade also a virtual event. It is unclear what the Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting will look like this year and how crowd control could be handled, but in June, the Rockefeller Plaza property managing director, EB Kelly, told Crain’s in June that at the time, the plan was still to have the tree go up as planned.

“Of course, the Christmas tree will go up this year, and we will do a terrific and phenomenal tree,” she said. “We may need to reimagine what the tree lighting itself looks like.”

However, there is a big concern over what the cancellation of these holiday events and the crowds that come with them could mean for New York City economically, as it continues to struggle with a downturn in tourism since the pandemic shut down many aspects of life around the globe, including in the city, where indoor dining is still banned until Sept. 30, and industries known for bringing money into the city, like Broadway and the Met Opera Season, have been put on hold until 2021.

Not only have an estimated third of small businesses in the city closed permanently because of the pandemic, but there is more concern over events like the Ball Drop going virtual leading to a massive ripple effect to hotels, restaurants and other businesses that would usually see an influx of business from tourists coming in for those events.

According to CBS News, 2019 saw more than 66 million tourists come to NYC, which generated close to $73 billion in revenue and supported more than 400,000 jobs. Without events to draw tourists in, that money is not going to be available to the boroughs and could hurt even more businesses and the city as a whole.

“Fifteen million tourists make their way to Brooklyn every year,” Randy Peers of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce said. “We are reliant on entertainment, hospitality and restaurant...A lot of that tied to tourism.”

At the beginning of the Pandemic, NYC mayor Bill DeBlasio warned that the city was losing revenue and suffering economically, with the Independent Budget Office forecasting at the time that there would be a tax revenue shortfall of $9.7 billion for both the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years.

A report last month from Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office echoed that amount, finding that New York City’s projected revenue loss was $9.6 billion from the pandemic and that more than 944,000 jobs in the city were lost during March and April alone.