Overview
- New Yorkers and visitors packed Times Square on Dec. 28 for the nearly 20-year-old event to symbolically discard frustrations from 2025.
- Participants wrote grievances on Broadway-style tickets, ripped them up, kept the stubs, and bowed after tossing their sheets.
- Attendees also recorded hopes for 2026 on confetti that will be released at midnight during the ball drop.
- Themes ranged from debt, bad vibes and procrastination to personal milestones, including a bone marrow donor wishing to leave illness behind.
- The Times Square Alliance and One Times Square produced the event, inspired by a Latin American effigy-burning custom and hosted by Jonathan Bennett, as the site transitions to a New Year’s Eve crowd expected at about one million.