London’s City Hall has blamed problems experienced by some attendees attempting to the watch the New Year fireworks display in the English capital on ‘fake tickets’.
A spokesperson for London Mayor Sadiq Khan told the BBC that “a number of people at ticket gates had fake tickets and were refused entry. Unfortunately this led to delays at entry points”.
Ticketing was originally introduced in 2014 to help ease the strain on transport and the emergency services, as tens of thousands descend on central London each year to watch the display on New Year’s Eve.
The BBC also reported that over 100,000 tickets had been sold for the fireworks at £20 (€23/$25) per person.
A number of disappointed customers took to X, formerly Twitter, to complain about being stuck in long queues and not being granted access into allocated viewing areas. Many of the complaints appeared to centre around the pink viewing zone.
One user said: “We were unable to enter pink area for London fireworks despite being there on time. There were no co-ordinators, no one knows what happened at the gate and the queue line did not move at all. Pink zone was abandoned.”
Another said: “Impossible to access pink area, despite being there on time. How can we get a refund? Why do you oversell tickets?”
The spokesperson for the London Mayor added: “Hundreds of event stewards played their part in delivering a safe and enjoyable event and a wide range of traffic schemes and strict security policies were in place to ensure that everyone who attended the event was safe.
“City Hall continues to work closely with the Met Police to tackle the sale of these fake tickets.”
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