‘HUNDREDS’ of families were left waiting in ‘hours’ of queues with ‘crying children’ after an ‘utterly chaotic’ firework display at the weekend.

Those who went along to the event at Dalton Barracks, near Abingdon, on Saturday say there were ‘not enough toilets’, the fireworks didn’t start on time and the event was ‘well beyond capacity’.

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Xplosive Events – who are behind the show – say the problems were partly down to ‘film sets on site’ closing two of the entrances.  

Bosses say the fireworks were also delayed until ‘the last car had parked up’ but going forward, they are ‘considering’ making events ticket-only with ‘strict’ capacity limits.

A man who asked not to be named, said: “Badly planned fireworks event at Dalton Barracks caused tailbacks all over Abingdon and the surrounding area. Standstill on the A34 and people complaining of taking two hours to move one mile.

Oxford Mail: Standstill on the A34Standstill on the A34

“We live three miles away and the Sat Nav said one hour and 21 minutes. After 45 minutes, we had to turn back because my daughter was crying, but we were still 2.5 miles away. The fireworks also didn’t start until an hour after the start time.”

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More than 700 people also complained on the Xplosive Events Facebook page.

Thara Alam said: “Absolutely terrible, almost an hour to get in and over two hours in traffic getting out, traffic not managed at all, cars zig xzagging every where and no signs or lighting.

“Once parked, queues for everything including a small handful of toilets for the many thousands of people there. Never again. Fireworks were lovely but not worth the trouble.”

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Another man, from Kennington, who asked not to be named, said: “It is utter chaos. Clearly, they are well beyond capacity.

“Apart from the traffic, there are no where near enough stewards and those that were there were starting to panic, with other people (not in high-vis) helping out trying to get cars parked.”

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A spokesperson for Xplosive Events said: “Despite a huge pre-sale ticket social media campaign, we were absolutely inundated with significantly more customers than usual arriving to pay on the gates.

“The local infrastructure and site has historically coped extremely well with large volumes of traffic but this year we had two less entry and exit gates and a section of the perimeter road that are off limits due to the film sets in place on the site, coupled with the larger attendance stretching the traffic management teams staffing allocation and placing the local road network under intense pressure.

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“We delayed the main display until the in roads were clear and the last car had parked up. We are considering making all future events ticket only with strict capacity limits to avoid traffic issues coming into and leaving the site and we look forward to having full use of the sites ingress and egress points in the future.”

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