If you\u2019ve been walking past Bayfront lately and noticed downtown Miami glowing a little extra citrusy, you\u2019re not imagining things. The Neon Big Orange, Miami\u2019s very own New Year\u2019s Eve countdown icon, is officially back in place outside the InterContinental Miami Hotel, ready to do its annual slow climb into the new year.<\/p>\n
The Big Orange is Miami\u2019s unapologetically Floridian answer to Times Square\u2019s ball drop<\/a>, but it\u2019s actually even bigger and brighter. The massive glowing sphere stands 35 feet tall, weighs roughly 2,000 pounds and has been marking the city\u2019s countdown to midnight for nearly 40 years. When the clock strikes midnight on New Year\u2019s Eve, the orange ascends the hotel\u2019s facade, signaling that the new year has officially arrived (at least according to Miami).<\/p>\n The tradition dates back to the mid-1980s, when neon sign-maker Steve Carpenter of Mr. Neon designed the piece specifically for the InterContinental building<\/a>. What started as a civic spectacle quickly became a fixture of the city\u2019s cultural calendar. Since then, the Big Orange has gone from novelty to public art. Its longtime motto, \u201cFrom Fruit to the Future,\u201d nods to Miami\u2019s agricultural roots and its ever-growing global identity.<\/p>\n Despite its once-a-year moment in the spotlight, the Big Orange isn\u2019t permanently mounted. After New Year\u2019s celebrations wrap, it\u2019s taken down and stored offsite, where Carpenter and his team inspect, repair and upgrade it for the following year. That\u2019s also why the installation goes up several days early\u2014test runs are essential when you\u2019re dealing with thousands of pounds of neon and LED lighting suspended above Biscayne Boulevard.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s return is especially notable: 2025 marks the Big Orange\u2019s 40th anniversary. (To celebrate, the clock features refreshed lighting effects.) Organizers are expecting more than 100,000 people to attend the New Year\u2019s Eve festivities, which will include live entertainment, food trucks and family-friendly activities around Bayfront Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s one more milestone attached to this year\u2019s countdown: during the celebration, Miami\u2019s new mayor, Eileen Higgins, will present Carpenter with a key to the city in recognition of four decades spent lighting up Miami\u2019s New Year\u2019s countdown.<\/p>\n The Big Orange will stay mounted through New Year\u2019s Eve, quietly counting down the days before its big moment. Until then, it\u2019s doing what it does best: lighting up downtown and reminding Miami that 2026 is on its way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve been walking past Bayfront lately and noticed downtown Miami glowing a little extra citrusy, you\u2019re not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2122,225,227,226,2123,106],"class_list":{"0":"post-99372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-categories-things-to-do","9":"tag-hialeah","10":"tag-hialeah-headlines","11":"tag-hialeah-news","12":"tag-news-city-life","13":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}