Crowd chaos at Christmas lights show
COMPLAINTS OVER ‘NO SOCIAL DISTANCING’ AT EVENT
THE organisers of a Christmas lights festival in Heaton Park have promised to investigate after pictures emerged of large queues of customers and ‘absolutely no social distancing’.
Hundreds of people attended the event on Saturday night where some people appeared to flout Tier 3 restrictions, designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which require people to remain two metres apart from people not in their family bubble.
Lightopia at Heaton Park was one of the few events allowed to continue despite Greater Manchester being placed under the toughest restrictions.
After complaints emerged about the alleged lack of social distancing, organisers said they would be ‘looking into’ arrangements for Saturday night’s event.
Joanne Wood, from Bradford, who went with her husband, two children and elderly parents, said: “We were approaching the main interactive part of the event when everyone started stopping and forming a big queue.
“There were more and more people joining the queue with absolutely no social distancing. There must have been thousands of people there. “I’d taken my elderly parents thinking that we were attending a safe, outdoor event. They haven’t been out since the summer. What we found was chaos and absolutely no social distancing. We were all bundled together in one of the queues. Rather than wait for 25 minutes in another queue, we decided to leave.” Joanne said she had also complained to Greater Manchester Police.
A spokesman from Lightopia said in a statement: “The safety of our customers is our upmost priority, information is sent to every ticket booker with links to the safety advice on our website in advance of guests arriving on site. “We have extensive measures on site including managed queuing, stewards, clear signage and hand sanitisation points.
“We take customer concerns seriously and will be looking into the operation on Saturday night and implementing any improvements that will enhance the existing measures.”
We take customer concerns seriously and will be looking into the operation Lightopia spokesman