Saratoga Springs is bringing a major headliner to its new New Year’s Eve celebration.
Long called First Night Saratoga, and then a four-day New Year’s Fest, this year’s celebration is dubbed Saratoga New Year’s Eve.
Two days of musical performances with Los Sugar Kings, Dogs in a Pile, and Tops of Trees at local venues will be capped by Ben Folds at the Saratoga Springs City Center.
Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce Todd Shimkus says it’s a collaboration between local leaders and organizations.
“No one of our organizations could pull off Saratoga New Year’s Eve but all of us working collectively can absolutely put on an amazing show. We are super excited, it’s new for us to be partnering with the Proctors Collaborative to help us secure not just great entertainment like Ben Folds, but also to do the ticketing and to help with ushers and stage management and all those things that we needed help with. And we also got Caffe Lena involved this year for the first time and we’re super excited about that,” said Shimkus.
Despite the handful of name changes in recent years, Shimkus says revelers can buy one ticket for access to all participating venues.
“We will have a band on New Year’s Eve starting at 5 o’clock Tops of Trees outside of the City Center, and then at 6 p.m. we’re going to do family friendly fireworks so you can bring the family for nothing and hang out downtown and watch the fireworks and go home and maybe come back downtown, leave your kids with a babysitter, and come back downtown for Ben Folds,” said Shimkus.
Caffè Lena, the longest running folk venue in the country, has been involved in the city’s New Year’s celebration for years. Executive Director Sarah Craig says the pandemic forced the venue to take a step back.
“Now that there’s such a great organizing team behind it, we felt really confident jumping back in. It’s going to be just a neat showcase of Saratoga’s year-round downtown core performing arts infrastructure which has really grown over the years. And it includes a great rock club like Putnam Place, it includes sort of a grand concert hall like Universal Preservation Hall and then this amazing, historic Caffè Lena folk club venue. So, we loved it, lots of new people are going to be coming through the door and probably seeing all of our venues for the first time,” said Craig.
The celebration builds on the recent success of free music performances on Broadway. When the Belmont Stakes came to Saratoga Race Course in June, it was accompanied with a free performance by Blues Traveler that drew 20,000 fans.
“I think it’s as important for us to have these holdover events as it is to have the racing season, right,” asked Deann Devitt.
Downtown Business Association President Deann Devitt.
“It really gives us an opportunity to showcase our downtown, have people come, sometimes for the first time and then return during the racing season or they were here during the racing season for the first time and they’re returning for one of our great events because they feel how electric our streets can be during one of these events. And also it’s an amazing way to give back to our local community. On the offseason when we’re not racing at the track, to be able to spend time and just give back something really fun and exciting for the people that live here and support our small business all year long, I think, is really important,” said Devitt.
https://www.discoversaratoga.org/events/saratoga-new-years-eve/