So, the New Year's Eve fireworks will be ticketed again this year, priced at £10 each (a limited number go on sale on 19 June, with the rest being released in September). But how many of us actually bothered to get a ticket last year?
That information has been given to Labour London Assembly Member Fiona Twycross: 27,476 of the 100,000 tickets sold for last year's event went to people living in this city. Twycross is calling for half this year's tickets to be reserved for residents, seeing how our council tax goes towards funding the event (the tenner charge covers the cost of ticketing). But we wonder: is it less that Londoners weren't able to get hold of/were priced out of getting tickets, or are we just less interested or savvier?
Despite the charges there are still plenty of places where you can see the famous whizzbangs for free, and not have to stand for hours in the cold before midnight. Or maybe — and before ticketing, it's impossible to know for sure — the fireworks have always been more of a tourist event? Do those of us who live here prefer to watch the fireworks on TV, or ignore them altogether and mark midnight by downing booze in our local pub? Let us know in the comments...
