WORCESTER — The EcoTarium welcomed 2026 a little early Wednesday, filling its galleries with music, laughter and confetti during its annual Noon Year’s Eve celebration, a daytime New Year’s countdown designed especially for families.
The event, held at noon on the final day of 2025, also marked the close of a milestone year for the museum as it wrapped up its 200th anniversary. Families gathered for the countdown as balls dropped inside the EcoTarium and confetti rained down, drawing cheers from children and adults alike.
“We are so grateful for all of the community support the EcoTarium received in 2025 as we celebrated our 200th Anniversary,” President and CEO Noreen Johnson Smith said in a statement. She noted that the museum is “entering a new era in 2026” with the arrival of its first major national exhibitions in the Stoddard Exhibition Hall.
Among them is “The Secret World of Elephants,” produced by the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, which opens March 7, 2026, and runs through Sept. 7. The EcoTarium will be the only Massachusetts stop on the exhibition’s national tour.
Mayor Joe Petty attended the celebration, greeting families, wishing them a happy New Year and congratulating the EcoTarium on its bicentennial year.
Throughout the day, visitors took part in hands-on activities including creating family time capsules, launching rockets, writing hopes for the coming year on a 2026 Resolutions Wall, exploring the solar system in the planetarium, learning basic coding through digital fireworks and making crafts. The event offered all the excitement of New Year’s Eve without the late-night countdown, closing out the museum’s anniversary year with a festive sendoff.
