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If you’ve ever watched the confetti storm over Times Square on New Year’s Eve and wondered, “What’s the deal with all that paper?” This is your year: The Times Square Alliance and One Times Square have reopened the annual Wishing Wall, the very place where hopes and resolutions get turned into official confetti that fall over the crowd when the ball drops at midnight.
The ritual is simple and extremely New York: head to the Broadway plazas between 45th and 47th Street, grab a colorful slip of paper, write down your 2026 wish and stick it to the wall. Every piece collected in person or online before December 29 gets printed onto real confetti that will be part of the roughly 3,000 pounds released on New Year’s Eve. (That’s about the weight of a small car, reborn as aspirations, for reference.)
The wall is open every day from 11am to 8pm through December 29, but closed for Christmas. If you’re not here in person, you can join the chaos from afar by submitting your wish at TSQ.org/Wish or through Planet Fitness, this year’s presenting sponsor, at PlanetFitness.com/confettiwishes. Anything sent after December 28 will roll into next year’s celebration.
Organizers say the tradition has grown into something bigger than a cute pre-midnight pastime. “The New Year is a moment of reflection and renewal, and each wish placed on the Wishing Wall represents optimism for what lies ahead,” said Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, in an official statement. “The confetti of wishes that drops at midnight is another symbol of the spirit that makes Times Square a beacon of hope for people around the world.”
Whether your wish is big, small, practical, chaotic or simply “please let the subway behave this winter,” you can send it into the New Year the most theatrical way possible—by letting it drift over thousands of people at the stroke of midnight.