COUNTDOWN TO TIMES SQUARE NEW YEARS EVE
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The Times Square Ball
The Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment, co-organizers of New Year’s Eve in Times Square, announced that revelers across the globe will again get to experience the excitement of the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration via a six-hour, live commercial-free webcast, which can also be seen on Times Square Gossip. The fifth annual webcast, produced in partnership with Livestream, will cover the action and festivities in Times Square including the Ball Raising at 6 p.m. EST, musical performances, hourly countdowns, behind-the-scenes stories and interviews as the anticipation builds towards midnight and the famous Ball Drop. Last year’s worldwide webcast was watched by more than 1.2 million unique viewers representing 196 countries.
Whether celebrating at home or out on the town, the worldwide online audience will be able to watch and participate in the global celebration with other viewers around the world. The custom-designed embeddable video provides viewers with a full feed experience that includes live video, chat, photos, text updates, real-time DVR, and video highlights.
National television and radio personality Allison Hagendorf (Host on The CW, VH1, Fuse TV, AXS, SiriusXM) returns to host the live webcast. She will be joined by Maggie Rulli, Andrea Boehlke and Jeremy Hassell, who were selected through a public talent search. Hagendorf will kick off the six-hour celebration at 6 p.m. EST when she will welcome the nearly one million revelers attending the event in Times Square and introduce the star of the show, the Times Square Ball. At the top of each hour, Hagendorf will be joined by a television network host or other celebrity who will talk about his or her New Year’s Eve experience and Confetti Wish for the New Year and also help lead the revelers in an hourly countdown. Throughout the night, Hagendorf will keep the revelers informed about the musical performances and other exciting entertainment in Times Square, including exclusive interviews and backstage access.
The Times Square New Year’s Eve show is presented through four thematic storylines that develop throughout the night as explained below:
ONE WORLD REVEALED - The story behind the million revelers who make the pilgrimage to Times Square to be part of the global celebration at the Crossroads of the World. Webcast correspondents seek out revelers from across the globe to discover their personal stories and share their energy and excitement about ringing in the New Year in Times Square.
THE STORY BEHIND THE SHOW - This narrative highlights the production efforts behind New York City’s largest annual celebration through time-lapse videos, voice-over narrations, animations and interviews with event producers and directors of key departments. The worldwide audience will discover not only the tremendous amount of work and state-of the-art technology, but also the extraordinary personalities involved in the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration. Revelers will be encouraged to ask questions about everything from cabling to confetti, staging to pyrotechnics, video production to the Ball Drop.
TIMES SQUARE - The story behind Times Square and its world famous New Year’s Eve celebration. The party started here in 1904 with over 200,000 revelers celebrating the New Year. Today, Times Square is famous not only for New Year’s Eve but also for the bright lights of Broadway, the streetscape of spectacular signs and huge public gatherings throughout its history.
CELEBRATION, REFLECTION AND RENEWAL - The story of the international online audience embracing the underlying themes of New Year’s Eve: celebration – celebrating people we love and the good things in life in the midst of the insanity of our world; reflection – looking back over the past year and taking stock of all that we have accomplished and all that we have endured; and renewal – embracing the chance to start fresh, try harder and do better.
WHERE TO SEE THE SHOW GET THE LIVE VIDEO FEED
The Times Square 2014 Webcast will begin at 5:55 p.m. on December 31, 2013 and end at 12:15 a.m. on January 1, 2014 EST. The show will be streamed live on multiple websites including TimesSquareNYC.org, Livestream.com, TimesSquareBall.net and TimesSquareGossip.com. Additionally, the Webcast can be seen on any mobile, tablet or Roku connected-TV device through Livestream’s viewing apps.
To join the Times Square New Year’s Eve conversation on Twitter, follow #BallDrop.
About Livestream
Livestream’s mission is to connect people and live events. Livestream offers event owners a complete set of hardware and software tools to share their events with a growing community online. More than 35 million viewers each month watch thousands of live events from customers including The New York Times, Facebook, ESPN, SpaceX and Warner Bros. Records. Founded in 2007, Livestream is headquartered in New York with offices in Los Angeles, London, Ukraine and India. www.livestream.com
About Allison Hagendorf
A national television and radio personality, music journalist, branded-content producer, food blogger, and voiceover artist, Hagendorf, a New York-area native, recently hosted The CW’s music competition show “The Next,” produced by Queen Latifah and Dave Broome (“The Biggest Loser”) and featured Nelly, Gloria Estefan, Joe Jonas and John Rich as celebrity mentors. Hagendorf has also served as Co-Host of VH1’s “Big Morning Buzz”, Cooking Channel’s “Not My Mama’s Meals”, and has hosted numerous shows on Fuse TV, including “Top 20 Countdown,” “The Pop Show,” and “Grammys Live.” Hagendorf also hosted the first ever live broadcast of New Orleans’ Jazz Fest as well as Coachella’s Country festival, StageCoach, for Mark Cuban’s and Ryan Seacrest’s network, AXS, and is also the host of MSG Network’s “Music Fridays.” She also recently partnered with AOL to create the original music travel series, “Signature Sounds with Allison Hagendorf.” In addition to music, she is the host of the “Cosmo for Guys” radio show on SiriusXM. Before entering broadcasting, Hagendorf worked in A&R at Columbia Records and Epic Records. Hagendorf can be followed on Twitter and Instagram via the handle @AlliHagendorf and through her site www.allisonhagendorf.com
About Times Square New Year's Eve
The Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment are the organizers of Times Square New Year's Eve. The Times Square Alliance works to improve and promote Times Square so that it retains the energy, edge and distinctiveness that have made it an icon of entertainment, culture and urban life. Countdown Entertainment represents the owners of One Times Square and the New Year’s Eve Ball.
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