Officials defend firework event

Several supporters wrote to an internet messageboard saying they were angry because it took over an hour to get in and the view was obstructed.

But officials at the Sixways rugby club said the problem was caused because 2,500 people turned up on the night without tickets.

One writer to the messageboard, a season ticket holder calling himself "The Monkses", said: "The organisation was a shambles and we will simply go elsewhere next year."

Another, with the nickname "Irreverent1", added: "It's no good making excuses about people buying tickets late, you have to make a reasonable judgement and they got it totally wrong."

A correspondent called "Stormy" wrote: "After 50 minutes in the queue, we got to the south stand ticket box with only two people serving.

"Two people serving tickets to over 1,000 people was stupid. Lots of stewards could see the massive queue but nothing was done."

Stormy said when they eventually did get in the display was "a waste of money".

But other supporters backed the club and said they enjoyed the display.

One said: "We bought tickets in advance, walked straight in and had a marvellous time."

Warriors marketing manager Sue Pennington said the event had been advertised heavily with discount offers to encourage people to buy tickets in advance.

She added: "On the evening we had over 2,500 people who arrived without tickets.

"This did cause a queuing problem causing us to open extra selling points and have staff servicing the queues with tickets.

"We have had a lot of good feedback about the quality of the event. However, we would like to sincerely apologise to those people who feel they were inconvenienced.

"It is impossible to predict the unprecedented demand that we encountered on Friday and we did all in our power to ensure that our customers enjoyed the evening.

"The spontaneous applause at the end of the display led us to believe that the event was a success."