City Hall has issued refunds to over 3,000 attendees of London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks after the event was disrupted by fake ticketholders.
The sold-out 2023 event faced huge crowd management problems and long queues that prevented genuine ticketholders from seeing the display.
A Freedom of Information request by MyLondon revealed that 3,075 tickets worth £61,000 were refunded.
The delays were caused by a large number of fake tickets, and City Hall is working with the Metropolitan Police to combat the issue.
During a February 8 plenary meeting, Deputy Leader of City Hall Tories, Emma Best, successfully proposed that the fireworks event be scrutinised by the London Assembly Oversight Committee.
In her motion, she highlighted a 33 per cent ticket price increase and the mayor's admission that a failure to manage fake tickets resulted in long queues and some genuine ticketholders being denied entry.
The motion passed 8-3, ensuring that future pricing, planning, and budgeting for the event will be closely examined.
A spokesperson for the GLA said: “The vast majority of the more than 100,000 ticketholders enjoyed the capital’s spectacular New Year’s Eve celebrations.
“Fake tickets led to entry delays at the gates, so we rightly provided refunds to the small percentage of genuine ticketholders who were affected.”
An FOI request by CityAM revealed that the extravaganza cost nearly £4 million and featured over 12,000 fireworks illuminating London’s skyline.
The GLA stated in its response that the event had a budget of £3.85 million, supplemented by £1.75 million in ticket revenue.
