Where is the Big Orange? Miami icon won’t be rising at downtown hotel on New Year’s

Miami’s version of the New York ball drop on New Year’s — the rise of the neon Big Orange up the side of a downtown hotel — won’t be happening as 2023 becomes 2024.

The neon icon hasn’t been seen in four years, although a digital replica has flashed up the Hotel InterContinental since New Year’s Eve 2021. That digital image will be back again this year, along with the annual celebration at nearby Bayfront Park.

But will it be the same?

The Greater Miami Host Committee told Axios that the neon sign won’t rise because of logistical issues at the hotel, which is making plans now to host players from Florida State University and the University of Georgia for the Orange Bowl game.

The installation of the Big Orange could be disruptive. It hangs from a hoist and requires scaffolding. The digital version flashes on the building as a computer light show.

The creator of the Big Orange, Steve “Mr. Neon” Carpenter, told Local 10 that the traditional Big Orange, 2,000 pounds 35 feet high, wouldn’t make an appearance.

For decades, the neon Big Orange rose up the building for the New Year’s countdown, part of the celebration at Bayfront Park that includes live music and fireworks. The party will still happen this year. But the familiar neon mascot won’t be there.

A digitized version has substituted for the Big Orange since 2021. That’s when the team that installed the Big Orange each year together tested positive for COVID. In 2020, the pandemic canceled the entire event for the first time in three decades.

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Don Slesnick, the former chair of the Orange Bowl Committee, told the Miami Herald Wednesday that the absence of the Big Orange was “a sad thing.”

It wasn’t just a sign, he said, but part of South Florida culture.

The Big Orange first debuted in the mid-’80s and was the headliner of a three-pronged New Year’s celebration — the Orange Bowl game, the Orange Bowl parade and the big rise up the building at the stroke of midnight.

This story was originally published December 13, 2023 at 6:12 PM.

Devoun Cetoute

Miami Herald

305-376-2026

Miami Herald Cops and Breaking News Reporter Devoun Cetoute covers a plethora of Florida topics, from breaking news to crime patterns. He was on the breaking news team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2022. He’s a graduate of the University of Florida, born and raised in Miami-Dade. Theme parks, movies and cars are on his mind in and out of the office.