Officials organising London’s New Year’s Eve Fireworks rejected claims this week that the annual event can become a “borderline deathtrap”.
Senior staff at City Hall, responsible for planning the celebratory display which draws more than 100,000 people to the banks of the Thames, said they were increasing the number of stewards this year.
But they declined to “recognise” a claim made by Tory London Assembly member Alessandro Georgiou that attendees faced “serious threats” to their safety.
Speaking at a meeting of City Hall’s oversight committee on Wednesday, Mr Georgiou said: “A lot of the time, this event - and I’m not ascribing blame necessarily - but it turns into the borderline of a deathtrap, quite frankly, both during and after, due to the number of people, the way that the event sometimes is handled.”
He added: “I know what you’re going to say - you’re going to say that the vast majority of people… are satisfied with the event, and I’m sure that’s very well true from those that have responded [to surveys].
“But in terms of looking forward, is there a different way we can say that, without making it sound like it’s all hunky dory, it’s all fine, everyone’s happy?”
Mr Georgiou said there was a need to “recognise there are serious threats to people”.
Though the assembly member did not refer to specific incidents, there were reports at last year’s event of overcrowding and of some people without tickets breaking down barriers to access the viewing areas.
Similar scenes were witnessed the previous year, when eight arrests were made, including two for drunk and disorderly behaviour, one for drink-driving and one for possession of an offensive weapon.
There were two assaults that year on police officers who sustained minor injuries and one common assault with possession of cannabis. However, these offences affected only a tiny fraction of those attending.
Nicole Valentinuzzi, City Hall’s assistant director for external relations, said: “I’m not sure we would recognise that there are serious threats, or any kind of characterisation of a deathtrap. I don’t think that would be operationally correct of us to substantiate.
“We can definitely think about the way that we refer to satisfaction levels of the event, and those who attend the event.”
David Holley, City Hall’s head of events, added that the team behind the display was “always striving to improve” on how it is delivered, and does consider feedback from attendees.
Mr Georgiou responded by insisting that there was a “serious risk to individuals, in terms of physcial presence”.
He added: “I don’t think any mayor has particularly cracked this, so this isn’t a political point, but just how we make these events safer - I think that’s a crucial point.”
Labour member Bassam Mahfouz then asked - after mentioning the importance of tackling “disinformation” - how long London’s fireworks display has been running for, and how many people have died as a consequence of attending.
Mr Holley said it had been running in its current, ticketed format since 2014, and that no one had died in that time.
Mr Georgiou interjected: “I’d just say to assembly member Mahfouz, there’s a first time for everything, isn’t there, and you shouldn’t have to wait for someone to die before you change things.”
Mr Holley had earlier told the committee: “Last year we experienced an uplift in the number of people coming to the event with fake tickets, and the challenge was that, understandably, a lot of people had spent a lot of money on these fake tickets and couldn’t quite understand that they had been tricked.
“So when we informed them that this was a fake ticket, they were not willing to move away from the entrances, which then created a crowding barrier.” He said this resulted in people with official tickets struggling to gain access.
“The other big challenge the event has, is that we have a high volume of non-ticketed people coming into central London on the off-chance that they might get into the event or be able to see the fireworks from a [place that is] not a viewing area,” said Mr Holley, adding that those people tend to crowd around entrance areas too, creating further access problems.
The event utilised 3,000 stewards last year, and intends to increase that number this year - though it has not been decided to what level.
However, there will be a higher proportion of ‘SIA stewards’, who have been licensed by the Security Industry Authority - meaning that they are fully trained to screen people at gates, conduct bag and body searches, eject people and respond to crowding incidents.
Ordinary stewards can only offer advice and information to people, monitor crowd flows and assist with evacuations, the committee was told.
Ms Valentinuzzi said her team is “constantly reporting” websites selling fake tickets for this year’s event.
Those wishing to attend the event, which costs between £20 and £50, have been advised that the only official seller of tickets is Ticketmaster, with further information available at https://www.london.gov.uk/events/london-new-years-eve-2024
