FarmVille Party Barn / New Year's Ball Drop Event: Everything you need to know

We've known about the upcoming New Year's Party in FarmVille for a few weeks now, but users everywhere have now started to see the New Year's Ball event kick off in the game, with the launch of the Party Barn in the store. While some users have been given the base of the Party Barn for free, others (even after refreshing) have had to resort to purchasing the base for 5,000 coins. Regardless of how you get it onto your farm, it can be upgraded with ingredients to turn into something truly spectacular.

This is another collection event, that is sure to end the year on a high-note with users, thanks to the prizes available via this event, and we have all of the information you need about this year-ending party behind the break.
First things first, if you're like me, and have an overwhelming number of Winter Holiday decorations flooding your farm, leaving you with little free space, you'll need to do some serious reorganization in order to even fit the Party Barn on your land, as it is simply massive.

Once placed, you'll be shown a menu that details all of the aspects of this new event. First and foremost, while this is a collection event in the most basic sense of the word, you'll be collecting friend RSVPs, rather than any actual item. You'll need to invite your friends to your in-game New Year's Ball Drop party, and the more friends that accept your invite, the bigger your party becomes, and the better the rewards that you'll unlock.

As of right now, there are four prizes to unlock for both girl and boy players, but the avatar clothing item therein is different depending on the gender of your in-game avatar. For both genders, three of the prizes are the Fireworks Finale (presumably a one time fireworks show that you can put on, on your farm), an unlock of the Balloons Crop, and a Disco Pony. However, for girl avatars, you'll also be able to unlock a fancy black Party Dress for your avatar, while boys will unlock the black Party Tuxedo for the same amount of "Guests."

You'll earn the Fireworks Finale after 5 guests have been added to your party. 10 Guests unlocks the Balloons Crop, which we told you about earlier this evening (16 hour crop that rewards 2 XP when planted for 15 coins per square; harvestable for 126 coins per square), 20 guests unlocks the avatar clothing item for your specific gender, and reaching the full 40 guest capacity unlocks the Disco Pony, an animal that we told you about recently in a FarmVille Sneak Peek.

To invite guests to your party, you'll need to click on the "Invite" button within the Party Barn menu. This will take you to a menu like the one seen below, where you'll be shown a list of all of your Facebook friends, with each friend having a "Share" button underneath their profile picture. Clicking on the Share button for a particular friend allows you to post an individual invite to that user's wall. If you haven't turned on automatic wall posting within the game (Zynga suggests that you do, but this is entirely voluntary for this event), you'll need to approve each wall post as it goes onto your friends' walls, but automatic posting will speed this process up considerably.

While you're waiting for your "guests to arrive" - their avatars will appear next to your barn, but can be removed by simply clicking on them to clear space, and they will then show up inside your barn on the dance floor - you can take a few moments to upgrade your Party Barn using the standard three ingredients: 8 Wooden Boards, 8 Nails, and 8 Bricks. You can either buy them for 1 Farm Cash each from the store, or you can ask your friends to send them to you via individual gift requests.

Of course, once the barn has been completed, it will be transformed from a simple red barn to a neon, flashing 2011 Party Barn, complete with large crystal ball perched atop a pole from the top of the barn, as seen at the top of this post. Once the party ends at the beginning of the new year, you won't be able to invite anymore of your friends to the party (meaning you won't be able to add more guests to redeem more items), but you will be able to re-watch the ball drop, or purchase prizes you already have enough guests for. In addition, the Party Barn will thankfully be storable.

And there you have it! A complete run-down on FarmVille's last big blowout of 2010. Remember to head into your own game to get the party started!