Night at the Museum--America 250 Grand Finale and Time Capsule Dedication

On December 31, 2026, Mesa, Arizona will become the stage for the closing celebration of America’s historic 250th Anniversary year. Inside the Commemorative Air Force Museum at Falcon Field, approximately 300 guests from Arizona and across the nation will gather beneath the wings of legendary military aircraft for Night at the Museum – America’s 250 Grand Finale. This will be far more than a New Year’s Eve gala—it will be an immersive celebration of America featuring a live eagle, teachers, veterans and youth sharing their Voices of America, distinguished guests, live entertainment, museum experiences, and A Journey Across America, an extraordinary multi-course culinary experience celebrating the foods, traditions and character of our nation from coast to coast.

At the heart of the evening will be something designed to outlive every person in the room: the America250/Arizona250 Time Capsule. Extraordinary artifacts, documents, photographs and messages are being assembled to tell future generations who we were in 2026, what we valued, what challenged us, and what we dreamed America might become. On New Year’s Eve, guests will witness this remarkable collection being preserved and sealed before its dedication and entrustment for the future. Seventy-five years later, in 2101, another generation of Americans will open what we leave behind. History usually tells future generations what people did; this Time Capsule allows us to tell them who we were.

Then comes a finale that could only happen at Falcon Field. Selected guests will board a historic C-47 for a New Year’s Eve flight ringing in 2027 on a C47 while hundreds celebrate inside the museum below. Together, they will count down the final seconds of 2026 as America’s 250th Anniversary year becomes history and the journey toward its next 250 years begins—right here in Mesa.