READY Royal Oak NYE Ball Drop Cancelled. Do you care?

Posted by Ashley | Filed under uncategorized


Citadel Broadcasting canceled plans for a Royal Oak Ball Drop to ring in 2010, according to Royal Oak officials. I’m kind of torn about this plan, and have been from the get-go. On the one hand, no one’s going to turn away a free party on NYE, especially when it’s an out-of-town company putting up the funds. On the other hand…most people my age (20s) seem to plan New Years Eve parties around 1) home parties or 2) bottle service. If you’re hosting a party, will you turn on the webcast? If you’re at a bar paying $250 to enjoy New Years’ Eve, do you care whether the ball drops? I’m more concerned with the bottle than the ball, but maybe that’s just my own alcoholism talking.

Would you attend/watch a Royal Oak ball drop?

Also, with a year to plan this bad boy, why doesn’t Royal Oak resurrect the Motown Winter Blast festival (formerly of Detroit) and make a big New Years extravaganza? Ice-skating, dog-sleds, snow sculptures, sleds, AND a ball-drop? I could get behind a plan like that!

From the Freep:

Royal Oak officials said they’re disappointed that their downtown’s New Year’s Eve revelry will not, after all, include the Citadel Broadcasting plan for a glittering outdoor ball drop along the lines of the one traditionally held in New York City’s Times Square.

Quantcast

The 2009 New Years’ Eve celebration ball drop approved at the Oct. 5 City Commission meeting has been canceled by the broadcasting company. The company said in a statement that “Citadel Broadcasting intends to create the region’s premier New Years Eve celebration in Royal Oak beginning in 2010, and hopes that by getting an earlier start on organization and coordination, the 2010 celebration will surpass all expectations.”

“I’m disappointed,” City Commissioner Chuck Semchena said today. “I wanted to see if they could pull this off. We’ll be taking a closer look at their proposal when they come back to us.”

Semchena said the broadcast wasn’t paying the city anything for the rights to the stunt but would’ve reimbursed Royal Oak for all expenses, “and the DDA was kicking in some money to make this happen,” he said.

The ball drop was to have been at 4th and Washington, from the Washington Square Plaza Building, he said.

Citadel Broadcasting is a Las Vegas-based chain of nationwide radio stations that said it had planned to show the ball drop on its Web casts.

Contact BILL LAITNER: 586-826-7264 or blaitner@freepress.com.

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Permalink | December 6th, 2009

One Response to “READY Royal Oak NYE Ball Drop Cancelled. Do you care?”

  1. Kim Says:
    December 7th, 2009 at 9:21 am

    I am disappointed. Like you, I likely will be inside in a bar or at the Music Theater for NYE but I thought this was a great alternative to the typical Royal Oak NYE experience.

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