The Times Square building in downtown Great Falls is preparing for a new year, and they’re bringing back something they introduced last year - a ball drop and festive party. The event kicked off at 5 p.m. at 525 Central Avenue on Saturday, December 31, 2022, and admission is free.
It features hot drinks, food, live music, a vendor market, and "a building full of friends to ring in the new year with!"
And at midnight, the giant ball will drop, officially ring in the year 2023.
Event organizers say: "We encourage you all to visit and warm up inside other local businesses in the area leading up to the ball drop at midnight!"
The event is hosted by Times Square Great Falls and Bass Clef School of Music & Fine Arts.
Tim Bass is the owner of the Times Square building. His reason for hosting the event is to support local businesses and bring the Electric City together in celebrating the beginning of a new year.
He also noted that Great Falls has never hosted a ball drop before last year's event.
"Downtown is trying to revitalize, and we are trying to bring people down to shop small," Bass said. "We were trying to figure out things that would uplift our community and offer for free. I got to think outside the box, and thought of the New York ball drop, which is a very popular event. We've been here at Times Square for quite some time, so we thought, why not go ahead and mimic a ball drop of that nature..."
Jeffrey Pickens designed the ball, both last year and this year. He explained the process of designing the ball.
Pickens said, "I bent a bunch of metal, and welded it all together to make the ball, and we decided to cut out numbers to match the height of the ball, and last year, when it dropped, it lit up and it was pretty nice ... Last year was a little bit tougher than this year because this year, we just had to cut out a new number, whereas last year, we had to start from scratch."
Tree Amigos played a major role in getting the ball all set and ready to go.
Denis Stringer said, "we ran with the old ball from last year. We went over it, and re-done some things, and flowed with it. It's pretty basic setting it up. We know what to do when running our trucks, and from there, it's pretty easy."
Times Square Great Falls said they anticipated this year to be successful. Bass said he hopes to make this an annual tradition moving forward.
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