Great ball of fire

WITH THE ENTIRE NATION |celebrating the arrival of 2014 with splashy fireworks, lebua at State Tower on Silom Road decided its patrons deserved something a little different and instead wowed with a first for Thailand dropping a ball from the sky.
Earlier on Tuesday night, guests at Sirocco were treated to a Champagne reception, a special New Year’s Eve set dinner and music from a jazz quartet.
Expecting fireworks, they were amazed when at exactly midnight the steel ball with glittering lights slowly descended from a 15-metre pole following the countdown cheer, marking the beginning of 2014 in style.
Of course, compared to the monumental golden dome atop the hotel’s tower, the lebua ball seemed fairly tiny, though it fact it wasn’t small at all. The soccer ball lookalike spanned a healthy 2.1-metres in diameter and weighed in at 1.2 tons. Twenty hexagons formed the strong steel structure along with 12 pentagons and the whole ball was covered in transparent fabric, filled with 2,950 LED lights and 50 strobe lights.
It took 50 Thai engineers and craftsmen 40 days to put together. Due to logistic and structural limitations, the management said that this the biggest ball they could construct on the site.
Since at 247-metres above street level, Sirocco is the world’s highest al fresco restaurant and the lebua ball was hoisted 266-metres into the sky, making it the world’s highest ball drop.
“Some of our guests didn’t know there would be a ball drop tonight.” Deepak Ohri, CEO of lebua Hotels & Resorts told us.
“We were already fully booked by the time the plans were fully realised, so we decided to make it a bit of a surprise and the event has been a huge success. I was immediately hooked when I heard the idea from my team and I was excited about bringing the first ball drop to Thailand. This is something that I hope will become a new tradition for Bangkok and that the Thai people will enjoy for many years to come.
With the lebua ball located on the rooftop of a privately owned building and dropped for a relatively small gathering, the vibe obviously couldn’t be compared to the countdown in New York’s Time Square, which is usually joined by thousands of people.
However, it was new to the city’s partygoers and could soon put Bangkok on the hot list of New Year celebrations.
But as New Year countdown celebrations are all about fireworks – a lot of fireworks – it may take time for the ball drop to become a viable alternative
The Times Square ball drop is one of the best-known New Year's celebrations internationally drawing at least 1 million spectators yearly. First held on December 31, 1907, to welcome 1908, the ball drop has been held annually since. The prevalence of the Times Square ball drop has also inspired similar “drops” at local New Year’s Eve events across the globe.

Lebua ball drop will return this New Year’s Eve at Sirocco. More at www.lebua.com.