Plant City NYE Strawberry Drop - Dawn Hyatt

In New York, they drop the ball. In Atlanta, they drop the beach. In Las Cruces, New Mexico, they drop a chili pepper. Plant City is starting its own New Year's Eve tradition to welcome in 2025 and can you guess what they're using as a symbol? We speak with Dawn Hyatt, executive director of Plant City Main Street. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gordon Bird here with Beyond the News in New York
they dropped the ball for the new year, and Plant
City for the first time, they're dropping something else to
celebrate when we ring in twenty twenty five at midnight
on New Year's Eve. I think you can guess what
it might be if you know anything about Plant City.
But Dawn Hyatt is executive director of Plant City Main Street,
and she's going to tell us what that is. Welcome

(00:22):
to Beyond the News.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Done, well, thank you very much, glad to be here,
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
So what are you dropping at midnight to bring in
the new year in Plant City? As if we couldn't
already guess.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, you're going to get a chance to see a
beautiful six foot strawberry dropping from eighty feet one foot
a second for a full minute with a nice show
going on as it counts down into the new year.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
So eighty feet is going to be dropping down at once.
So basically, you have a strawberry that's going to be
a six foot strawberry or strawberry report it's going to
be dropping down eighty feet. I assume that's it's going
to be displayed from a crane and blered that way.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Correct. We have it suspended up above the stage by
a wonderful crane gentleman that came out to help us
with Henry's crane service. Very happy to have him helping
us with that. And this is a first, so we
are praying it goes off smooth.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Now, this is the first, as you mentioned, and it's
something that you and your organization have come up with.
Of course, your job is promoting downtown Plant City. Tell
us what led to setting this up and how you
came to this concept.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, it took a team, It really took a team.
But being NW to Plant City myself, I moved here
from Texas and came home after Christmas to find that
nothing was happening for New Years, and a few of
us sat around and said, you know, I'd love to
drop a strawberry. We have a ball, let's get a
strawberry together. So a few of us sat down and
I drew out the strawberry, and Metals of Nature or

(02:00):
Arleie Smooth took it in and helped get that completely
created with the metal app work out there that he did.
Then we turned around and had a gentleman that did
all the lighting on it, so it is digital, digitally wrapped,
I guess I should say. And it became something we
wanted to do. It's taken two years in the making.

(02:22):
We're finally ready to do it and looking so forward
to it.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
And the interesting thing to me most interesting of what
you're describing as that process, it sounds like all the
local people just came together and put this all together
and made the strawberry and everything. It sounds like very
much just tapping into local business resources to make this happen.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
That is exactly what we did. We used Steve Lambert
with AAM lighting was able to get us the names
of the people and do all the phone leg work,
if you will, for us, getting everybody in contact and
going over for like I said, metals of nature to
make it. Bob McDowell did the light show. And everything
is local. You shop local, you stay local. That is

(03:05):
something that we live by and promote and are very
proud of.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
So you're going to be holding and hosting a family
friendly event from seven pm leading up to the ball
drop and then just going shortly after midnight. Tell us
about some of the things you've got going on there
in downtown Plant City. Tuesday, evening New Year's Eve.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I would be more than happy to this. Like you
had said, it's a family friendly event. We actually had
the Strawberry Festival and the Strawberry Growers' Association sponsor and
all out free kids. So you'll have bouncers and carnival
games with prizes, face painting, all free for the kids
to come. And that starts at seven along with the

(03:46):
rest of the event. We have Droughdy's Dance School doing
a live performance with their competition team at seven point
thirty and we have a few games going on, some
Hulu Houp competitions, and then the wad taking place at nine.
There'll be a dance party at ten thirty. We have
over thirty five vendors. We have eight food trucks, we

(04:08):
have a gyrosphere ride. It's going to be a lot
of fun.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Of course, people are familiar with the Strawberry Festival that
takes place on the west end of Plant City, they
may not realize you have a vibrant and picturesque downtown.
What do people need to know about getting to downtown
Plant City and things like parking once.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
They get there, Well, parking is free, there's plenty. We
are only closing off one parking lot where the event
is actually taking place, and then we'll go from there
to all around downtown where people can turn around and
park anywhere. But it's free parking. There's plenty of parking.

(04:48):
There's a field across where people can park. Traffic shouldn't
be bad that hopefully it will be good and.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Well, sounds like we've covered all the and it sounds
like it's going to be a very interesting first time event,
and I'm sure you're planning for it not to be
the last time, that this is something you'd like to
see established an ongoing year after year to come.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
That is exactly it likely had said. This is our
first one, it's our inaugural strawberry drop, and we're hoping
that this will set a new tradition for everyone in
the area to come and enjoy.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Don Hyatt, executive director of Plant City Main Street. Their
job is promoting downtown plant City and they're going to
be dropping the strawberry to bring in twenty twenty five
at midnight. Don Hyatt, thank you very much for joining
us on Beyond the News.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Thank you again for having me