Annual Wishfetti Sets Festive Mood a Month in Advance of the Famous Countdown.
Pop-up shops first hit New York in the 1990s. Creative and engaging, they grabbed attention with their “surprise!” locales and “get it, quick!” reality. Art? Fashion? Gadgets? Food? Here-and-gone retailers have since found ways to offer it all, in spaces large and small. Then there’s the pop-up that whisks into New York’s theater district with a totally different appeal. For the past two Decembers, that spot has offered a free chance to shower strangers with Wishfetti.
While security details sealed manholes and planned barricades, Times Square Alliance handed out brilliantly-colored squares and circles of tissue paper. Onto this biodegradable Wishfetti, tourists and residents penned hopes and dreams for the new year.
Then, on December 29, the Alliance and partner Glasshouse Balloon Co. carried the wishes in bagfuls to surrounding rooftops. On New Year’s Eve, as the ball dropped at midnight, “confetti dispersal engineers” flung the wishes into the night to flutter with the rest of the confetti and blanket the crowds celebrating below.
The Wishfetti concept is fascinating. It’s at once light, airy, heartfelt and generous. Its colors can be customized to match wedding themes and retirement celebrations. It can be cut from paper that dissolves in water. As an effect, it is as fleeting as the pop-up shops, and, in the planning, just as engaging.
Congratulations to Times Square Alliance, Glasshouse Balloon Co., sponsor Planet Fitness, the volunteer confetti dispersal engineers, NYPD and all involved in presenting another spectacular event. May all the hopes and dreams come real.