New Year’s Eve revellers without tickets to central London’s sold-out fireworks display were being urged to stay at home and watch the event on television as emergency services in the city prepared for their busiest night of the year.
In a change from last year, when around half a million people squeezed into a section of the city to view the display, just 100,000 paying ticket holders will be permitted to watch the city’s annual celebration from a fenced-off area.
“If you don’t have a ticket, the best place to watch the #londonnye fireworks will be live on the BBC,” the office of the London mayor, Boris Johnson, said on Twitter after telling the public that last year’s crowded conditions meant that a free event was “untenable”.
However, he came under fire from opposition politicians over the ticketing and for the erection of mobile LCD signs hammering home the message that the fireworks were being shown on the BBC.
Fiona Twycross, a member of the London Assembly, described the signs as an insult to Londoners and visitors to the city and accused the mayor of privatising New Year by bringing in the ticketing system.
“His decision to introduce ticketing of the NYE fireworks has been done so poorly it risks turning the event into a ticket tout’s dream,” she wrote on the Left Foot Forward blog.
“The official £10 tickets are sold out and some ticket resale sites are taking advantage of the unmet demand and advertising tickets at up to £200 each.”
The fireworks display, which will be watched live by ticket holders lining the River Thames, will synchronise with the midnight chimes of Big Ben and will feed into television coverage.
Preparations for a major security operation, meanwhile, started earlier in the day. Around 4,200 police officers will be on duty across the city, both within and outside the ticketed areas, including some watching over the crowds from podiums.
A spokesperson said: “Our advice is not to travel into London if you don’t have a ticket. If people are still considering coming to see the fireworks it will be extremely difficult to get around. Areas will be cordoned off for those with tickets and Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square will not this year be featuring large viewing screens.”
The London Ambulance Service said it was already getting busier earlier in the day and predicted that New Year’s Eve would once again be its busiest night of the year.
People were urged only to call in a genuine emergency by the service, which was taking over 600 calls an hour at peak times last year when normally it would take around 250.
It is running three alcohol recovery centres and five “booze buses” across London to look after people who have had too much to drink, in addition to 11 treatment centres in conjunction with St John Ambulance volunteers for anyone who is injured or unwell within the event area.
Members of the pubic were advised by the ambulance service to eat before drinking alcohol and to avoid “stronger continental beers”.
In Edinburgh, there were still tickets available on Tuesday for the city’s 75,000-capacity Hogmanay street party, although other events, including a candlelit concert at St Giles’ cathedral and a ceilidh at the Mound precinct, were sold out.
