Underground Atlanta on Tuesday confirmed that the 2021-22 New Year’s Peach Drop is officially cancelled due to a rise in COVID-19 cases in the city. This is the third consecutive year that the 30-year-old tradition has been booted off. 

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What is Atlanta’s New Year’s Peach Drop?

The Peach Drop is an annual New Year’s eve drop event held in Atlanta, Georgia. The use of ‘Peach’ symbolises Georgia’s identity as the ‘Peach State’. 

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This year’s Peach drop had to be headlined by Grammy Award-winning singer Ashanti. The event was also to feature Goodie Mob and Blanco Brown to ring in 2022.

Lalani Ventures, the owners of Underground Atlanta in a statement said, “Due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases, the City is canceling the Peach Drop at Underground. While we are saddened to miss this year’s party and musical acts, we are very excited to bring the Peach Drop back next year better than ever.”

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Event organisers are hopeful the signature New Year’s event would return to bring in 2022. Historically, the Peach Drop has drawn in crowds of 60,000.

The event was cancelled in 2019 due to location challenges and last year because of COVID-19.  An Atlanta City Council panel in November approved the funding to stage the party to be held at its old location, Underground Atlanta downtown.