How Waterford Crystal designs the iconic ball for the Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration

It is the most emblematic ball in the world. And as New Year’s Eve celebrants count to 2021, more than a billion people will watch the glass-clad sphere fall in Times Square.

The ball itself is 12 feet in diameter, weighs 11,875 pounds and is covered in 2,688 Waterford crystal triangles, and creating it is practically a whole year. The new world-renowned Irish crystal company Waterford, now owned by Finland’s Fiskars, has held the ball for the past two decades in conjunction with the Times Square Alliance, which gives it a new, shiny look every year. And in Waterford, the man accused of the ball is master craftsman Tom Brennan.

Brennan, 49, grew up in the town of Waterford, a former Viking port of 47,000, and followed his father, a master glassblower for 30 years, to work for the company. “I remember at 11 or 12, I would finish school at 4 o’clock and my dad would finish work at the Waterford factory and watch him come out the door with the other glassmakers,” Brennan said. Forbes. “I’d be looking at the factory and thinking someday I’ll do it.”

And he did, getting to become a master craftsman and eventually taking over the Times Square ball.

For most of his life, the ball had the same pattern every year. But in 2014, Waterford introduced themes, starting with the imagination, depicted on the ball with intricate wedge cuts that reflected each other. Last year, the theme was harmony, which was shown with small rosette cuts that flowed from each other. This year, the theme is goodwill, represented by three pineapples, reflecting hospitality and welcome.

“At the end of the ten-year series, you have this six-ton ​​ball with a different theme each year,” Brennan says. “You have this patchwork quilt that everyone can appreciate.”

Waterford, the history itself dates back to 1783, makes the panels look the same way glass is made for 5,000 years. Heat ultra-white silica sand, potash and crushed glass imported from previous rejects in an oven at 2,400 degrees until it is bright orange, elastic and ready to be molded. The resulting crystal triangles have complex designs that will reflect light ranging from 4.75 inches per side to 5.75 inches per side.

Ball lighting includes more than 32,000 Philips Luxeon LED lights. Engineers use software to create more than 16 million colors and billions of patterns as if the giant crystal ball were a children’s kaleidoscope.

Waterford artisans make these glass panels at the company’s factory in Ireland and send them to a safe place near Times Square to install a few days before the weekend. On Friday, workers placed the 192 new glass panels on the ball and prepared it for the fall of New Year’s Eve.

To have enough perfect panels, Brennan says, Waterford makes 220 to 230 glass triangles. “If it doesn’t work,” he says, “we destroy it and start again.”