“The theme last year was ‘Frozen,’ the theme this year is a little more mild, but wet.”
New Year’s Eve will be warmer and wetter than last year’s festivities in New York City, but hosts Ryan Seacrest and Jenny McCarthy are prepared for all conditions as they get ready to take center stage in Times Square.
ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” airs on Dec. 31 live starting at 8 p.m. east coast time.
“The theme last year was ‘Frozen,’ the theme this year is a little more mild, but wet,” Seacrest tells Variety. “So we will be thinking about precipitation and survival throughout the course of the night as we always do.”
This year marks the 47th anniversary of the annual celebration in Times Square and the lineup will feature a diverse slate of performers, including country duo Dan + Shay, Bastille, New Kids on the Block and Christina Aguilera, who is returning to the Times Square stage for a second time since last appearing in 2007 to perform a medley of hits right before the ball drops at midnight.
NKOTB is also coming back to the stage for an encore, having last performed in 2010 with The Backstreet Boys. McCarthy remembers it well — it was her first time hosting NYE and she got a thrill when future husband Donnie Wahlberg called to her as he was going to the stage to be interviewed by Seacrest, yelling “Hey, Jenny McCarthy!”
“There has been a buzz in my house, because the first year I hosted he performed… and that was the first time we met,” she says.
