Workers install 192 crystals on Times Square New Year's ball

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Workers hold a new Waterford Crystal triangle next to the New Year's Eve ball for the 2021 New Year's Eve Celebration in New York, New York on December 27, 2020. (Photo by Kena Betancur / AFP)

NEW YORK - Workers installed 192 new glittering Waterford crystal triangles on Times Square’s New Year’s Eve ball Sunday in preparation for a pandemic-limited celebration lacking the usual tightly packed crowds of revelers.

The ball is a 12-foot-diameter geodesic sphere covered with 2,688 crystal triangles of various sizes. Some new crystals are swapped in every year. This year’s edition features a new "Gift of Happiness" design represented by a sunburst of bright cuts radiating outward.

The ball blazing with 32,256 LED lights will be dropped at 11:59 p.m. on New Year’s Eve to ring in 2021. Performances at the event will be designed for TV audiences watching from home.

The organizers of the New Year’s Eve celebration in say this year the event will be "virtually enhanced" due to the coronavirus pandemic.

They do say that there will be an opportunity for people to participate virtually from home.

Tim Tompkins, President of the Times Square Alliance, which co-produces the event says, "More than ever in these divided and fear-filled times, the world desperately needs to come together symbolically and virtually to celebrate."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.