New Year’s in the Big Orange

Promoters hope a celebration at O.C. Fairgrounds will one day rival the event in Times Square.Organizers planning a large-scale New Year’s Eve party are expecting thousands to converge on Costa Mesa to ring in 2006.

About two weeks remain before the inaugural Orange County New Year’s Eve event at the Orange County Fairgrounds. Peter Melton, the event’s promotions director, said he anticipates most guests will buy their tickets after Christmas and that the real work of promoting the show has just started.

“It’s the frantic time,” said Melton, who works for event producer Richard Goodwin Presents.

Melton said his company projects 15,000 to 20,000 people will celebrate New Year’s Eve at the fairgrounds, and that about 60% of those attending will buy their tickets in the week after Christmas. He said last week that radio promotions have recently started and that about 300 people have enlisted in the “Orange Army” to advertise the event in exchange for free admission.

“The key to our grass-roots efforts is what we call the Orange Army,” Melton said. “They tell their friends all about it.”

The Orange County Fair’s board gave Richard Goodwin Presents the go-ahead to produce the event in August. The festival is being billed as the largest New Year’s Eve event on the West Coast, and promoters have said they hope to create an annual tradition to rival New York’s famed celebration in Times Square.

The central attractions are the lineup of rock bands and the “Orange Drop,” a local take on New York’s plunging ball.

“It’s sort of an illuminated orange ball with special-effects lighting inside it,” Orange Drop executive producer Dennis Condon said. The ball is designed to have a green, leafy-looking top, like an orange. Its descent will be accompanied by pyrotechnics, lasers, a retrospective video showing Orange County landmarks and a medley of 2005 songs.