12 months, hundreds of guests, and 20 cases of champagne: preparing for New Year's Eve at the Hilton New York Times Square
Every December 31, an estimated one million people pack into Times Square $SQ to watch the Ball drop over New York City and welcome in the New Year. The annual celebration brings nearly all other activity in Midtown Manhattan to a halt: the streets are closed off and movement is limited as midnight draws closer.
And while for many people, these last few hours of the old year are filled with carefree celebration, for the staff at the hotels that flank Times Square, it’s one of the busiest evenings of the year.
At the Hilton New York Times Square (HLT), preparations for the big night begin in January and continue until December 31, when 26 guests are able to watch the ball drop from the hotel’s roof – which only opens on New Year’s Eve.
The hotel’s general manager, Thom Caska, recently gave Quartz a tour of the hotel, while sharing about his team’s preparations for New Year’s Eve. Continue reading to learn how he and his team have been preparing all year long for the final hours of 2024.
January
The staff at the Hilton New York Times Square start readying themselves for December 31 in the first weeks of January – while revelers across the country are still recovering from their New Year’s Eve celebrations.
“The week after New Year’s, we’ll all sit down and compile our notes of how everything went,” Caska explains. “That creates that document that will be our North Star for next year.”
The team looks at everything from the hours of the evening when guests chose to eat dinner, to the amount of champagne the New Year’s Eve revelers made their way through.
“Last year, we bought about 20 cases of champagne. But it’s not quite that simple, because we have so many guests,” Caska recalled. “We’ll have probably about seven or eight different kinds of champagne – from La Marca to Veuve Clicquot, to Dom Perignon.”
June
Halfway through the year, preparations for the big night begin in earnest. The New York Police Department holds its first meeting, with all the business stakeholders in the Times Square area, and outlines the plans and expectations for the next New Year’s Eve celebration.
“Our goal is always to have as much preparation as possible so that we can adapt or adjust once that information on the NYPD’s plans becomes available,” Caska explained.
Once the hotel is aware of the NYPD’s stipulations for the year, they begin making their own preparations: discussing the packages they will offer to guests and how the evening will play out.
November
While the hotel staff might think about New Year’s Eve for months in advance, future guests are far less inclined to plan their end-of-the-year celebrations.
“A lot of people don’t really make that commitment to their New Year’s Eve plan until close to the date,” Caska told Quartz. “We don’t get many calls about our rooftop package until right around Thanksgiving. That’s what really starts to move.”
And while the rooftop is reserved for a small number of guests, hotel staff noted that in the post-pandemic years, there has been an increase in the number of families and friend groups that also stay at the hotel for New Year’s Eve. For many, this is an opportunity to create lifelong memories for their children or a chance to connect their own current lives with nostalgia from year’s past.
Some families make a point to stay at the Hilton New York Times Square, as a tradition. New Year’s Eve guests comprise a wide range of guests – some travel internationally to see the ball drop from their hotel window. Others come from much closer – last year, Caska said, one Brooklyn couple booked a New Year’s Eve stay because it seemed like a romantic thing to do.
“After Covid, people are far more interested in time together and experiences,” he said. “New York City has always been really popular this time of year, but after the pandemic, I think people are more interested in spending time together.”
Early December
Less than a month out from New Year’s Eve, the NYPD holds another meeting with businesses and intelligence networks to nail down the final plan for Times Square.
“We all get together, and they kind of lay the ground rules for us on what they’re doing,” Caska explained. “For that one night a year, they’re going to take the area from 40th Street to 50th Street, between Sixth and Eighth Avenues, and they are going to turn it into a giant arena.”
“They are setting up a barricade and letting people in, like they’re going to a concert or a sporting event. And they have it down to a science,” he continued.
It’s around this time that Hilton New York Times Square guests receive a letter, confirming that they’re staying in the hotel on New Year’s Eve and a wristband that will guarantee they can enter the area.
“Our access point for guests is on 41st Street and Eighth Avenue, so any guest who’s coming in or out of the hotel will come through that area,” Caska explained. Police officers and representatives from the hotel are then stationed at the access point on New Year’s Eve, to ensure that guests can get in and others, without wristbands, stay out.
Mid December
In the final weeks of the old year, the whole of Times Square begins to prepare for the New Year’s Eve celebration. It’s actually the one time of year that the Ball itself is removed and the new one is installed.
At the Hilton New York Times Square, staff members begin to transform their deserted city rooftop into a celebratory area – they put up barricades, lay down green patio grass, and install heaters to ensure the guests’ comfort in the late December chill.
Despite the scale of the event, however, Caska said that decor is far more minimal than one might expect.
“We really try to avoid anything that could go off the roof. So there’s no signs, there’s no confetti. We don’t even really have string lights and most of our flora will be weighted,” he explained. Aside from safety, however, there’s also not necessarily a need for elaborate decorations when the roof provides views of Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, and, of course, Times Square.
“At night, you really don’t need anything except New York City. That’s what people are looking at. One year we all sort of put up different decorations and no one cared. Not once they saw the lights of Times Square.”
New Year’s Eve (Day)
When New Year’s Eve finally arrives, almost every staff member interested in working that night is allowed to stay, regardless of their normal shifts. The scale of the event requires all hands on deck – but Caska says that for many employees, it’s the highlight of their year.
Even if staff members are overwhelmed, however, their respite is the joy of celebrating the December holidays with their guests. Throughout December, for example, the hotel leaves a mailbox in the lobby where children can write letters to Santa Claus. Any of the particularly cute or funny notes are then taken out of the box and hung in employees only areas, where staff members can read them for an emotional lift on busy workdays.
Memorable events unfold throughout New Year’s Eve. Caska has countless memories of watching families, friends, and couples have the time of their lives in the hours leading up to the New Year.
One time, he even witnessed a marriage proposal during a New Year’s Eve dinner service.
“It was actually kind of funny. There was a young man who was in the restaurant, and he was sweating. We had actually thought that maybe he had too much to drink, so we went up to him a couple of times and said, ‘Sir, are you okay?’” Caska recalled.
“I remember thinking, ‘let’s keep an eye on him, because he looks like he’s in a rough spot.’ And then he proposed during dinner and all of the pieces came together.”
New Year’s Eve (Night)
The guests who purchase a rooftop package, meet in that same dining area at around 11:30 p.m. They’re escorted up to the roof and handed a glass of champagne after ascending the staircases.
“We don’t really want to be up there for too, too long because of the weather,” Caska said. “If it rains, we have heated ponchos for everyone. But the only reason we’d ever pause is if they weren’t holding the ball drop in Times Square. It’s rain or shine.”
And then, the guests watch the same scene from the rooftop, that millions of people will watch on their televisions, at home: the final musical performances, the countdown to midnight, the ball dropping and the first celebrations of 2025.
New Year’s Day
After months of preparations and weeks of holiday celebrations, many of the hotel’s staff members can finally leave their posts and return home. For Caska, it’s the moments after midnight that are most memorable and the most surreal.
“We’ll have this big event. It’s crazy – there’s lights and noise and everyone is hugging. And then I usually leave by 12:30 or 1 a.m. and it’s all gone. Times Square is empty,” he said. “It’s eerie. You can hear a pin drop in Times Square. And I think that that is the craziest part. Times Square is the emptiest it’s ever been, a few minutes removed from it being the busiest.”
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