New Year's Eve Goes Virtual With No Times Square Crowds For 2021

It's going to be a strange sight this year without the shoulder to shoulder jam packed crowds of shivering people packed into Times Square for the New Year's Eve ball drop.

Due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, much like this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, we'll be welcoming 2021 in virtually.

According to CBS, there will still be some small live events in Times Square as we say goodbye to 2020 (or good riddance, as the case may be!), but we won't see the sea of people squeezed into New York City's iconic midtown entertainment district.

Usually, barricades are set up to keep the crowds in once they get in, but this year the barricades will ring the square to keep crowds out.

According to the Times Square Alliance, the organization in charge of New York City's annual New Year's Eve celebrations, things may look different as we usher 2021 in, but there will be the iconic ball drop:

Whether confetti will fall on the mostly empty square remains an unanswered question at this point, though.

Personally, as much as I enjoy watching the cheering crowd and as much as I truly love New York City, you couldn't pay me enough to jam myself into Times Square on New Year's Eve, go for hours without a bathroom break (seriously, those barricades truly are normally intended to keep people in once they claim a spot), then have to take the "drunk train" back home to the Shore.

Things will be different, everything has been this year, but I think one thing that we will all be happy for is bidding farewell to a true bummer of a year!