From: https://shorturl.at/h8lvY (nypost.com)

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New Year's Eve never gets old for the `confetti king' of Times Square -- he's
still an emotional wreck at midnight after 3 decades on job

   By Eric Hegedus
   Published Dec. 30, 2025, 10:25 a.m. ET

   One minute before midnight on New Year's Eve, high above street level,
   Treb Heining closely monitors a digital clock below the Waterford
   crystal ball towering over Times Square, and soon the crowd loudly
   joins together in a final countdown chorus.

   " ... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1  ..."

   By the time fireworks blast off on the hour and "Auld Lang Syne" echoes
   from 42nd to 59th streets and Sixth to Eighth avenues, "confetti king"
   Heining has already given a quick radio command -- "Go confetti!" -- to
   team leaders in charge of 100-plus volunteers scattered around seven
   buildings surrounding Times Square.

   As thousands dance and cheer, packed shoulder-to-shoulder at street
   level, and couples (and perhaps strangers) passionately kiss, Heining
   joins the volunteers in hoisting huge handfuls of confetti into the
   air, one bunch after another. The 2-inch-square pieces of paper quickly
   engulf the area in a vibrant, fluttering blizzard, upstaging the ball
   drop for those on the street and turning several Midtown blocks into
   the largest, most colorful snow globe on Earth.

   Now in his third decade of orchestrating the stunning spectacle,
   Heining -- who turns 72 on Jan. 18 -- says the experience never gets
   old.

   "Every year on New Year's at midnight, I cry. It is an emotional,
   wonderful thing for me every year, you know?" Heining told The Post in
   a video call from his longtime business, Glasshouse Balloon Co. in
   California.

   "My grandkids have gotten me big shirts that say `cry baby' on them
   because I definitely ... " he continued before pausing briefly as the
   confession caught in his throat. "I wear my emotions on my sleeve."

   The typically upbeat Heining, with his broadcast-ready voice and
   signature red glasses, launched the city's first Times Square confetti
   barrage on New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 1992, after nearly two decades
   running pioneering, large-scale balloon businesses since 1979.

   Both his routine and his emotions rarely waver, he said, whether it
   includes engaging with dozens of volunteers -- some repeat, some
   newcomers -- during a 7 p.m. "confetti dispersal engineer orientation,"
   or fending off anxiety as the clock ticks closer to midnight.

   "I am completely nervous at 11:50 when I'm pacing up and down on my
   setback with a walkie-talkie, ready to give the cue. It never changes,"
   he told The Post. "It's a complete honor to have the job, to be the
   gatekeeper for so many people, to be a part of something that's so
   amazing, that goes out around the world, for everybody to see, you
   know? It's a huge honor."

   He's come a long way from filling and selling balloons at Disneyland at
   15. Post-college, he segued into sales and production work for Famous
   Amos cookies before being convinced by entrepreneur David Klein -- who
   created the Jelly Belly candy line and with whom he is still "close
   friends" -- to harness his Disney roots and form his own balloon
   company. Since then, he has staged balloon drops and large displays for
   18 Super Bowls, three Olympic Games and many Republican and Democratic
   national conventions.
   
   His annual New Year's Eve gig includes wrangling upward of 3,000 pounds
   of confetti -- packed into 75 boxes of about 45 pounds each -- that are
   released from building windows and setbacks, including at the Marriott
   Hotel, the former Bertelsmann Building at 1540 Broadway, and the
   Minskoff Theatre, where "The Lion King" performs.

   Thousands of the tiny slips of paper include scrawled messages,
   solicited online and via a Wishing Wall in Times Square, with writers
   seeking to "get skinny," buy "a new car" or simply "fall in love."

   Heining was especially touched by one message he noticed several years
   ago that read, "I wish that my mom's cancer goes away" -- and included
   a phone number.
   
   He and a volunteer called the number, and Heining introduced himself,
   telling the woman on the other end -- he doesn't know if it was the mom
   or daughter -- that their message would be released over Times Square
   that night.

   "I'm waiting for them to say something, and they're silenced, you
   know?" he recalled. "And they're sobbing on the other end of the phone.
   Sobbing. And she eventually said, `Thank you so much.' And it was just
   ... It was wonderful," he continued, choking up.

   "The message thing is so, so amazing, because some of them are written
   by kids, and they're really rudimentary, and other ones are very
   touching. And it makes you realize, as a human being, how fortunate we
   all are, because so many people are carrying such a load."

   He's also been moved by more direct, face-to-face connections with many
   "dispersal" volunteers, who come from faraway countries including
   Russia, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand.

   "Over the years, boy, I know we've covered the globe," he said.

   But one encounter from two years ago will be among the many that stick
   with him.

   While passing through the lobby of Midtown's Renaissance Hotel for a
   meeting days before the new year, he encountered a "wonderful" family
   of visitors from Germany -- husband, wife and two daughters -- who had
   no plans for the big night.

   Heining told their shocked tour guide to suggest they join the confetti
   crew -- and they did.

   "The confetti goes off that year. It was spectacular, as usual," he
   remembered, with the visiting foursome joining in to disperse the
   confetti blizzard.

   "The wife comes over to me, in a beautiful long coat -- because they're
   from Germany, they know how to dress warm and all that stuff -- and she
   gives me this big hug," said Heining, his voice again starting to
   catch. "And it got to the point, you know, where you want to let go and
   everything. She didn't let go.

   "And she's hanging on to me, and she whispers in my ear, `This is the
   greatest New Year's we've ever had in our lives.' "

   It's one of those heartwarming moments "that are hard for me to talk
   about," he said.

   "Come on -- stuff like that stays with you forever, you know?"
===

-- Sean

... What if someone's real name is a psuedonym?
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