The city is denying event permits for six weeks around the upcoming FIFA World Cup soccer games and America’s 250th anniversary, turning a summer of opportunity into a summer of missed opportunities for event planners and city business improvement districts hoping to cash in on some of the big-ticket events, the Daily News has learned.
City officials are denying any new permit requests for events in city parks, as well as any large-scale events in Times Square and other gathering points throughout the Big Apple, between June 11 and July 19, claiming that the NYPD and other city agencies will not be able to handle the large crowds the events would bring.
Mayor Mamdani and several agencies, including the Parks Department and the NYPD, made the decision “to ensure the efficient deployment of police resources and public safety during the busy summer 2026 season,” the Parks Department said in a statement.
Traditional events and parades that have taken place in the city over the last few years will go on as scheduled, city officials said.
But the moratorium on new events is causing headaches for city business improvement districts, or BIDs, who were hoping to hold events linked to the World Cup games and America’s 250th anniversary, but are being told they cannot.
The latest casualty is the red, white and blue ball drop in Times Square slated for July 3. With the mortarium in place, the ball will be lowered at One Times Square without onlookers crowding the pedestrian plazas, organizers said in a joint statement.
“While there will not be a public event in the Times Square plazas, we are working through standard coordination with city partners and look forward to sharing additional details soon,” One Times Square and America250 said in a joint statement.
FILE – NYPD police officers are pictured outside the Armed Forces recruitment center in New York’s Times Square in this file photo. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
The ball drop, which will be similar to the one on New Year’s Eve, will be broadcast live, organizers said.
Tom Harris, the president of the Times Square Alliance BID, said he was “disappointed we will not have a public event for America250.”
“Our hope is this will be an amazing summer in Times Square and in New York City with plenty to do,” Harris said. “All events are not created equal, and we will continue to try and work with the city to get approvals not only for legacy events but for new and exciting events that require minimal or no city resources or events that can be managed safely with private resources.”
At an unrelated press conference at the Prospect Park Zoo Wednesday, Mayor Mamdani said the World Cup “is going to be a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the city.”
“What it also demands is that we are prepared for it,” he said. “And so we are taking the steps to ensure that we have the requisite public-sector capacity to deal with the number of events that will be a part of that World Cup.” He added that the city is trying to shift events slated to occur during the soccer tournament to other times, so police resources aren’t drained.
“We’re looking to find alternative dates to ensure that the city can not just put on an event at this scale, but that it sets an excellent level of quality,” Mamdani said.
If event permits for the weeks flagged by the city haven’t been denied outright, they’ve been delayed for so long that event planners have pulled out, taking their events — and their business — to other cities, BID leaders said.
Jeffery LeFrancois, the executive director of the Meatpacking District Management Association, knows of at least six events that have decided to move to Philadelphia, San Francisco and other large cities because of the denials and delays from City Hall.
As a result, both the city and local community organizations are losing out on revenue that could come from brands hoping to hold events and World Cup-related activations, he said.
“(FIFA and America250) aren’t New York City-centric events — this is all of North America, so New York can easily lose out,” LeFrancois said. He added he doesn’t understand why the city is cracking down so hard on event permits — which include smaller celebrations that don’t require a police presence.
“Depending on the size and scale, a lot of these events don’t even need city resources,” he said. “And a blanket ‘Wait and see’ from the city isn’t helping anybody. We need to be able to make decisions. There are brands that have money to spend on permits for events and want to leverage the World Cup, but they’re not getting approved here, so that money ends up going elsewhere.”
BID groups earn a fair chunk of their capital to fund private security, cleaning crews, landscapers and florists for their pedestrian plazas through these summertime events, organizers said.
“These BIDs can lose up to $1 million in fees” without these events, said a source with knowledge of the permitting process who wished not to be named. Even small events, such as outdoor viewing parties where people can watch a FIFA game on a jumbo screen in pedestrian areas, are either being denied or delayed, the source said.
“Very few of these events require a police presence,” the source said. “Not even allowing a permit for something like that, how can that be logical?”
NYPD officers patrol Central Park on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News)
A city source, however, said that smaller events like watch parties have not been denied.
“It’s all still getting planned out,” the source said.
The NYPD referred all inquiries to the Parks Department statement about the permit freeze.
“This year, New York City will be hosting events associated with the FIFA World Cup from June 11 through July 19, which also overlaps with planned celebrations for the United States’ 250th anniversary from July 1 through July 9,” the statement read. “The events associated with the FIFA World Cup and the United States’ 250th anniversary will require significant realignment and deployment of city personnel.”
The only other time the city quashes permit requests is during the United Nations General Assembly, a weeklong annual event in September that involves major street closures and police resources being heavily used to protect dignitaries from around the globe.
A police source with knowledge of the upcoming events described the World Cup games and America250 as “UNGA on steroids” that will need significant police resources.
A FIFA Club World Cup Final Ball visual is displayed against the Manhattan skyline by 1500 drones in a FIFA drone show ahead of the Club World Cup Final on July 11, 2025 in Liberty State Park, New Jersey. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
The 39-day stretch will also include the city’s annual Pride March and celebrations and Sail4th250 — a massive flotilla of tall ships that will sail down the East River to coincide with the country’s Semiquincentennial.
“This is three major events with five times the amount of people than UNGA,” the source said, referring to the World Cup, America250 and Pride.
While the World Cup games will be held at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, several World Cup kickoff events and celebrations will be held in New York, officials said.
So far, the city isn’t seeing the economic boon to the tourism economy it expected from the World Cup.
Earlier this week, hotel associations said they’re not seeing a significant increase in demand around the event between surging hotel prices and a dip in international tourism in part due to uncertainty around Trump.
Vijay Dandapani, CEO and president of the Hotel Association of New York, said hotel booking are down from last year.
“City Hall can play a critical role in turning the tide and lifting our local economy by supporting the industry rather than imposing additional cost increases,” Dandapani said. “We agree with the Mayor that it is critical New York captures the full economic benefits of this once-in-a-generation event while also protecting the hundreds of thousands of hospitality workers who rely on a strong and thriving hotel sector.”
LeFrancois said all of these permitted events could have been better organized so that city resources could be better distributed — and that the city had plenty of time to plan.
“We didn’t hear that the World Cup was happening last week. We’ve known it’s been coming to North America since 2018,” he said. “We’ve also known that the 250th anniversary of Independence Day would be this year and Pride parades all happen at the same time.”
“This is silly,” he said. “Nothing is new and the city has been so good at walking and chewing gum at the same time, there’s no reason we can’t do it now.”
FILE – An electronic billboard displays a FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 soccer logo, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2019, in New York’s Times Square. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Harris, a retired NYPD inspector, said he knows “public safety is paramount in our streets and public spaces,” but he hopes the city and its BIDs can find some kind of common ground as these events draw closer.
“The fact is many events can and have been safely managed with private resources,” Harris said. “We hope to work with the city to strike a balance and quickly identify those new events that can safely happen in our iconic public spaces as we welcome millions of soccer fans, New Yorkers and other visitors this summer.”