Fireworks Update - October 2014

In 2013 the AP&P Trust decided to revive the November Fireworks Display. This had been an extremely popular free event for many years, until the Trust decided that it could not justify the cost at a time when budgets were being reduced.

In 2013 the Fireworks event was put on by a commercial operator. There were charges for entry, and a parallel beer festival, fairground rides and children’s area were running. The event was generally successful although there were several hundred complaints, primarily about the running of the beer festival and children’s provision.

In the light of this experience the Trust decided to continue with the Firework event this year, but with the Trust taking over responsibility for organising the overall event, using contractors for the Firework display, beer festival etc. Changes this year include an increase of tickets from 30,000 to 35,000; a longer closure of Alexandra Palace Way, from 23.59 on October 31^st to 06.00 on November 2^nd; separate ticketing for the beer festival; separation of the children’s fairground area from the ‘higher octane’ rides for older children and adults; better management of the entry points.

The Friends of Alexandra Park raised various concerns prior to the 2013 event (see below) including the unnecessary height of the solid barrier constructed alongside Newlands Road. It looks as though this will re-appear this year, as the police had insisted on it to prevent large crowds assembling in Newlands Road to watch the display, which would be outside the control of the event stewards.

May 2013

In May 2013, the Alexandra Park and Palace Trust informed the Consultative and Statutory Advisory Committees of a proposal for a commercial Fireworks display in the Park on November 2nd combined with a Beer Festival in the Palace. Following that meeting we emailed members of the Friends to find out what they felt about the proposal. These responses were fed back to the Committees, along with comments from the other Committee members. The Trust Board received that advice and subsequently gave the go-ahead for the Fireworks.

Background story

The firework display at Alexandra Palace used to be extremely popular as a free event, but the cost to the Trust (after netting off the receipts from the ‘bucket collections’) was around £100,000, and this was felt to be too great when the Trust is charged with reducing its annual deficit. So the firework display has not been held for the last few years.

After receiving approaches from a commercial operator, the Trust decided to enable the firework display to resume by allowing a commercial operator to close the Park and charge an entry fee for the firework display. The operator will also run a food and drink festival in the Palace from 2pm on the same day. The operator will carry all the costs of the event, and as far as I know, the Trust will not receive any income from it, though the Friends are trying to confirm this with the Trust.

Closure of the Park will require fences to be erected in areas such as Newlands fields, between the Palace and the Boating Lake buildings, across the Grove and across various of the entrances. Access to the event will be through most of the existing entry points to the Park, though it seems not from Campsbourne or Park Avenue North. It is unclear whether visitors to the event will be able to access the area of the Park to the south of the Lower Road. Toilets, lighting towers and food concessions will be installed around the Park. The Park will be cleared of non-ticket holders at 3pm on the afternoon of the fireworks.

The Friends of Alexandra Park have previously argued that occasional large scale commercial events are justified in parts of the Park because of the enjoyment they bring to participants, and the income they bring to the Trust. In this case the Trust sees the public enjoyment aspect sufficient to outweigh the lack of income, and the firework display will certainly be very attractive, to those who can afford it. However the committee of the Friends of the Park feel that closure of the whole Park for a commercial event is a new departure (in modern times), and is a worrying precedent. The committee is also concerned about the risk of damage to the Park ecology as a result of construction vehicles moving fences and equipment around on soft surfaces.

My request to members of the Friends for comments on the fireworks proposal yielded 25 replies, of which 9 clearly did not want the event to go ahead, 14 wished to see the event go ahead, and a couple were fence-sitters. However the notable feature of the responses was that most (both for and against) expressed concerns about safety and security at the event, the possible precedent of closing the Park, or the lack of income to the Trust. It is difficult to know whether this was a representative sample of our members, but we reported the balance in favour, and the concerns expressed.

The majority of representatives at the Consultative and Statutory Advisory Committee meeting were in favour of the fireworks, although residents groups with experience of previous fireworks events expressed strong concerns about problems which have arisen before, such as crushing at some of the exits and large crowds in streets outside the Park.

The Friends of Alexandra Park discussed members’ concerns about the management of the event with the Trust and event organisers, as happened with the Red Bull Soap Box event. This resulted in Red Bull making a few adjustments to their plans which reduced the risk of damage to sensitive areas of the Park.

Gordon Hutchinson

Chair, Friends of Alexandra Park