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New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square will be reshaped to launch the U.S. 250th birthday anniversary, with America250 organizers describing a patriotic crystal ball, red-white-and-blue visuals, and additional festivities tied to the semiquincentennial. The ball is scheduled to drop on Dec. 31 in New York City from One Times Square, organizers said, and it will rise again afterward as part of the ceremony’s updated design.

America250 Chair Rosie Rios, who oversees the bipartisan commission created by Congress in 2016 to organize the anniversary, said the 2025-26 kickoff would be “one for the ages.” Rios said the organization worked with the Times Square Alliance business district and the One Times Square building to make changes to the year’s ceremonies, including a second confetti drop.

Rios also said America250 organizers have planned a separate ball-drop event on July 3, “the eve of the nation’s birthday,” and they intend to stage it “in the same beautiful style that Times Square knows how to do it,” she said. She described the planned July 3 event as the first time in 120 years that Times Square’s ball-drop tradition will not occur on New Year’s Eve.

The Times Square ball has been dropped since 1907, when a 700-pound (318-kilogram) ball built by Jacob Starr was used for the New Year’s Eve ceremony, according to the organizers’ historical account. Organizers said the most recent version was unveiled last year as the Constellation Ball, described as the ninth and largest version, measuring about 12 feet (3.7 meters) in diameter and weighing nearly 12,000 pounds (5,400 kilograms).

Organizers said the only years when no ball drop occurred were 1942 and 1943, when the city used a nightly “dimout” during World War II to protect against attacks. In those years, crowds marked the new year with a moment of silence and chimes rung from the base of One Times Square instead of the ball drop.

The stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve will also serve as the official launch for America Gives, a national service initiative created by America250, with organizers saying they hope 2026 will become the largest year of volunteer hours ever aggregated in the country. America250 is also set to take part in the New Year’s Day Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, on the following day, organizers said, with a float themed “Soaring Onward Together for 250 Years” featuring three larger-than-life bald eagles representing the country’s past, present and future.

In describing the broader arc of events planned through 2026, Rios said she sees a wide menu of celebrations—ranging from fireworks and statewide potluck suppers to student contests and citizen oral histories—as an opportunity to unite a politically divided nation. Rios said her goal is to create “menus of options” so people can “pick and choose how they want to participate,” adding, “That’s how we’re going to get to engaging 350 million Americans.”

Rios also referenced additional efforts tied to the 250th anniversary. She said President Donald Trump has announced the “Freedom 250” initiative to coordinate additional events for the celebration, as America250 moves from the Times Square kickoff into planned national programming across the country.