New York's big New Year's Eve celebration takes a year of planning?and with Times Square's 100th anniversary this year, 2004 promises to be bigger than ever. Here's how Tim Tompkins does it.
Title: President
What He Plans: The alliance coproduces the annual New Year's Eve celebration with Countdown Entertainment, the Broadway on Broadway theater promotions with the League of Theaters, and the Taste of Times Square outdoor food festival, as well as an array of smaller events each year. "Last year we did a summer solstice event celebrating creative expression," Tompkins says. "We had people doing yoga in Times Square—it represented the great karmic challenge of trying to have peace of mind while being in the most frenetic place in the universe."
Staff: 15 full-time employees
Budget: About $8.6 million
Career Path: After earning his undergraduate degree in history at Yale and his MBA from Wharton, Tompkins did a stint as a journalist in Mexico. He founded Partnerships for Parks and cofounded Parks 2001, both projects to improve New York's neighborhood parks. In the 1980's, he worked for the city's Charter Revision Commission and later for the Economic Development Corporation, where he focused on the 42nd Street redevelopment project. He joined the alliance in 2002.
Age: 40
Where He Lives: Very close to Times Square—44th Street and Ninth Avenue
Where He Grew Up: Outside Philadelphia
Biggest Challenge: "Keeping things fresh. Anytime you do something for the first time, it's an enormous effort, so once people get it right, it's very hard to get them to think of new ways of going about it. Doing things differently involves risk"
Best Tip: "The most important thing is to know how an event fits into an organization's brand strategy. Every element from the press release to what's on the table sends a message, so you have to make sure you send that message in a coherent way.
Favorite Drink: "I don't drink, so it's Strawberry Nirvana from Jamba Juice."
Favorite Magazine: "Cruising World. And no, it's not about sex—it's about sailing."
JANUARY
Tompkins gathers a core group responsible for managing the event—his two senior marketing staffers, the chief of operations, representatives from Rubenstein Associates (the event's PR firm), the television broadcast producer, and representatives from coproducer Countdown Entertainment—for debriefing meetings about the previous year's celebration. "A debrief right after any event is really important, because you tend to forget over time what went wrong and why," Tompkins says. "Right away is often when you have the best ideas about how to improve or change the event." For example, the 2003 celebration involved the first Panasonic-sponsored sing-along, and the group concluded that the songs were too slow for the amped-up crowd. They also discussed how Listerine representatives showed up without prior permission to distribute a new product. "It caused real crowd control concerns with the police department, and it was a problem for us, since the right to distribute and promote must be paid for through sponsorship," Tompkins says. "We established some protocols for clamping down on that the following year."
MARCH
By the end of the month, the $1 million-plus budget is finalized. Sponsorship covers about 80 percent of the bill, and the alliance's budgets make up the rest. "We negotiate hard with our vendors," Tompkins says.
MAY AND JUNE
Tompkins and his team discuss general themes for the upcoming event. Last year, the celebration saluted the armed forces, with New York representatives in uniform onstage for the raising of the ball, and former P.O.W. Shoshana Johnson as the special guest (the person who presses the button to lower the ball). Back in 2002—closer to the 2001 terrorist attacks—the theme was courage and moving forward in the face of adversity, and Christopher Reeve was the guest. This year, the overall theme is the centennial anniversary of Times Square.
SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER
The team meets every two weeks to consider details like securing a theme-relevant special guest. "It's complicated, because you want to go after celebrities or well-known people but you can't ask five of them at the same time; you have to do it serially, so it always takes longer than you want," Tompkins says. "You have to adjust your expectations as you go, because a lot of people want to do things with their families or travel for the holidays, so it's more complicated than you would think, given the [prestige] of the event."
NOVEMBER
Tompkins' team meets weekly to finalize details, including meetings to secure permits with city agencies like the police department and the Department of Transportation. "There are a lot of logistics and contracts and subcontracts for confetti, balloons, staging, sound—vendor selection and negotiation gets more intense throughout the fall," Tompkins says. There are about 50 vendors to determine each year, including a fiber-optic-gear supplier, pyrotechnic services provider, hotel booker, sky tracker operator, audiovisual producer, satellite time buyer—and on and on.
The group settles on entertainment during this time, too. "Twenty years ago people would just come and get drunk and sort of be all over the place," Tompkins says. "Then the police got it under control, but there was kind of a counterreaction, like, 'Don't do anything that's going to upset the crowd and make people stomp on each other,' so there wasn't a lot of music for a while. Lately we've been adding more things to entertain people, because we know they're standing in the cold for seven hours." Last year, Cyndi Lauper performed.
DECEMBER
Production kicks into high gear. "The people who make the numerals that go on top of the building do that, and they deliver it—those kinds of finishing touches come together."
DECEMBER 26 TO 30
"We have a series of fun but mindless press events," Tompkins says. "We own the week [after Christmas], because the media is starved for stuff about New Year's. We announce who the special guest is and we have press events for the rigging of the ball. And we do a confetti test [to determine the airworthiness of the current year's confetti], where we throw confetti out of our office windows a few days before New Year's and it flies around. Frankly, it's a publicity stunt, but there are always 10 cameras down there taking pictures of us throwing confetti out the window. And then we do an event with the ball being screwed in and the crystal being put on."
DECEMBER 31
The area surrounding the square closes to traffic at about 5 PM, and more than 500,000 visitors gather. At 9:30 PM the alliance deploys its sanitation crews to distribute giveaways like American flags and party hats to the crowd. At 10 PM the live telecast starts, and at 10:30 PM the sing-along begins. After a full 60-second countdown, the famous ball drops at midnight. "There is a tremendous sense of anticipation," Tompkins says. "For the final few hours, I am out in the square, going back and forth, checking on things, and doing interviews up on the press riser—and at the end of the evening I am up on the stage with the mayor and others. It is a very heady moment."
—Alesandra Dubin
Title: President
What He Plans: The alliance coproduces the annual New Year's Eve celebration with Countdown Entertainment, the Broadway on Broadway theater promotions with the League of Theaters, and the Taste of Times Square outdoor food festival, as well as an array of smaller events each year. "Last year we did a summer solstice event celebrating creative expression," Tompkins says. "We had people doing yoga in Times Square—it represented the great karmic challenge of trying to have peace of mind while being in the most frenetic place in the universe."
Staff: 15 full-time employees
Budget: About $8.6 million
Career Path: After earning his undergraduate degree in history at Yale and his MBA from Wharton, Tompkins did a stint as a journalist in Mexico. He founded Partnerships for Parks and cofounded Parks 2001, both projects to improve New York's neighborhood parks. In the 1980's, he worked for the city's Charter Revision Commission and later for the Economic Development Corporation, where he focused on the 42nd Street redevelopment project. He joined the alliance in 2002.
Age: 40
Where He Lives: Very close to Times Square—44th Street and Ninth Avenue
Where He Grew Up: Outside Philadelphia
Biggest Challenge: "Keeping things fresh. Anytime you do something for the first time, it's an enormous effort, so once people get it right, it's very hard to get them to think of new ways of going about it. Doing things differently involves risk"
Best Tip: "The most important thing is to know how an event fits into an organization's brand strategy. Every element from the press release to what's on the table sends a message, so you have to make sure you send that message in a coherent way.
Favorite Drink: "I don't drink, so it's Strawberry Nirvana from Jamba Juice."
Favorite Magazine: "Cruising World. And no, it's not about sex—it's about sailing."
JANUARY
Tompkins gathers a core group responsible for managing the event—his two senior marketing staffers, the chief of operations, representatives from Rubenstein Associates (the event's PR firm), the television broadcast producer, and representatives from coproducer Countdown Entertainment—for debriefing meetings about the previous year's celebration. "A debrief right after any event is really important, because you tend to forget over time what went wrong and why," Tompkins says. "Right away is often when you have the best ideas about how to improve or change the event." For example, the 2003 celebration involved the first Panasonic-sponsored sing-along, and the group concluded that the songs were too slow for the amped-up crowd. They also discussed how Listerine representatives showed up without prior permission to distribute a new product. "It caused real crowd control concerns with the police department, and it was a problem for us, since the right to distribute and promote must be paid for through sponsorship," Tompkins says. "We established some protocols for clamping down on that the following year."
MARCH
By the end of the month, the $1 million-plus budget is finalized. Sponsorship covers about 80 percent of the bill, and the alliance's budgets make up the rest. "We negotiate hard with our vendors," Tompkins says.
MAY AND JUNE
Tompkins and his team discuss general themes for the upcoming event. Last year, the celebration saluted the armed forces, with New York representatives in uniform onstage for the raising of the ball, and former P.O.W. Shoshana Johnson as the special guest (the person who presses the button to lower the ball). Back in 2002—closer to the 2001 terrorist attacks—the theme was courage and moving forward in the face of adversity, and Christopher Reeve was the guest. This year, the overall theme is the centennial anniversary of Times Square.
SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER
The team meets every two weeks to consider details like securing a theme-relevant special guest. "It's complicated, because you want to go after celebrities or well-known people but you can't ask five of them at the same time; you have to do it serially, so it always takes longer than you want," Tompkins says. "You have to adjust your expectations as you go, because a lot of people want to do things with their families or travel for the holidays, so it's more complicated than you would think, given the [prestige] of the event."
NOVEMBER
Tompkins' team meets weekly to finalize details, including meetings to secure permits with city agencies like the police department and the Department of Transportation. "There are a lot of logistics and contracts and subcontracts for confetti, balloons, staging, sound—vendor selection and negotiation gets more intense throughout the fall," Tompkins says. There are about 50 vendors to determine each year, including a fiber-optic-gear supplier, pyrotechnic services provider, hotel booker, sky tracker operator, audiovisual producer, satellite time buyer—and on and on.
The group settles on entertainment during this time, too. "Twenty years ago people would just come and get drunk and sort of be all over the place," Tompkins says. "Then the police got it under control, but there was kind of a counterreaction, like, 'Don't do anything that's going to upset the crowd and make people stomp on each other,' so there wasn't a lot of music for a while. Lately we've been adding more things to entertain people, because we know they're standing in the cold for seven hours." Last year, Cyndi Lauper performed.
DECEMBER
Production kicks into high gear. "The people who make the numerals that go on top of the building do that, and they deliver it—those kinds of finishing touches come together."
DECEMBER 26 TO 30
"We have a series of fun but mindless press events," Tompkins says. "We own the week [after Christmas], because the media is starved for stuff about New Year's. We announce who the special guest is and we have press events for the rigging of the ball. And we do a confetti test [to determine the airworthiness of the current year's confetti], where we throw confetti out of our office windows a few days before New Year's and it flies around. Frankly, it's a publicity stunt, but there are always 10 cameras down there taking pictures of us throwing confetti out the window. And then we do an event with the ball being screwed in and the crystal being put on."
DECEMBER 31
The area surrounding the square closes to traffic at about 5 PM, and more than 500,000 visitors gather. At 9:30 PM the alliance deploys its sanitation crews to distribute giveaways like American flags and party hats to the crowd. At 10 PM the live telecast starts, and at 10:30 PM the sing-along begins. After a full 60-second countdown, the famous ball drops at midnight. "There is a tremendous sense of anticipation," Tompkins says. "For the final few hours, I am out in the square, going back and forth, checking on things, and doing interviews up on the press riser—and at the end of the evening I am up on the stage with the mayor and others. It is a very heady moment."
—Alesandra Dubin
