Review: Battersea Park fireworks display

very poorly organised...

poorly organised event!!

iratecustomer, i was down there and completely agree with you... you should be able to get a hotdog and a drink with limited fuss at a fireworks display. the food vans needed more staff to whittle the queue down quicker. But batterseapeople, u r right, you couldn't fault that display, the fireworks were amazing. How can they improve things like queues though?! It's just such a popular display. We need to suggest something to the council.

i have to admit, the further away from the food stalls you got, the shinier and happier people were. I gave up on getting anything to eat as I knew the queues would just ruin my MOOD, and it did take a long time getting out of the vicinity. Lots of people on Twitter seem to be sharing your views iratecustomer!

This was the most frustrating, poorly organised fireworks display I have ever had the misfortune to attend. We chose this display largely because of the adverts on the website which promised a large food court and mulled wine which could be purchased form the bar. This was entirely untrue:there was one limited row of food stalls which had queues of more than 100 people in them throughout the event, and mulled wine was being sold from a small van separate to the bar served by just 3 people. We joined a queue for mulled wine at around 6:20 which was already snaking round and back on itself and barely moving; an hour later the queue had completely disintegrated as people were pushing in from the sides until there was just a huge crowd of people all pushing to get to the front with no stewards around to put in place or enforce any kind of systems. I definitely didn't see any shiny happy people in the crowd; I was surrounded by angry people who had paid ten pounds to stand in a queue for an hour and a half and by this time looked ready to punch the next person that elbowed them in the ribs or trod on their feet.

The fireworks started just as we got towards the front of the queue. I can't fault the fireworks at all - from what I saw they were great - only I was sandwiched between a huge crowd of people for the most part, separated from two of my four friends, and as the stall was under a big tree a lot of the fireworks were hidden behind its branches. My friend who'd come to London to celebrate my birthday saw nothing of the fireworks at all as she was surrounded by people taller than her in the queue.

It being my birthday we'd planned to eat something from one of the stalls and have a glass or two of mulled wine while we watched the fireworks. We didn't end up eating at all because the food queues were as ridiculous as the mulled wine queue, and we finally got served at the bar as the finale was going off to the final song. The total lack of planning or foresight on the organisers' part, coupled with the absence of any security/ stewards to put in place any kind of order at the inadequate selection of food and drink stalls, spoiled the evening for me and I'm angry that I had to pay ten pounds for this 'privilege.'

People we spoke to in the queue said they'd been enjoying coming for years, but they'd never seen such chaos as they did tonight. I find it hard to believe that the organisers didn't anticipate bigger crowds after big shows like those at Clapham Common and Victoria Park were cancelled (I am assuming this is the reason for it); would it have been so difficult to organise more stalls and more stewards for the event this year?

I actually think we deserve a refund for our wasted evening: the friends I was with came from Dorset, Southampton and Edinburgh to celebrate my birthday and we had a rubbish time. I definitely would not recommend this event to anyone, and I certainly won't be going again.