Festival goers have slammed what they can an “absolute shambles” of an event after some went home after complaining of long queues.
Tall Ships festival is being held in Falmouth, Cornwall, this week for the four-day event with organisers promising to bring in changes to prevent a repeat of recent years.
Thousands of visitors made the trip to the A&P Falmouth Docks where some of the finest ships in the world are docked.
But they have proven so popular that long queues started to form which led to chaotics scenes and increasing frustration amongst visitors.
After complaints on opening day on Tuesday (August 15) about queue chaos, organisers blamed visitors who did not have tickets.
They said only pre-booked tickets holders should turn up to tour the vessels and only at their allocated time to avoid queueing pointlessly for hours or holding up other people who have tickets for the right time slot.
Richard Wilcox, of the Falmouth Tall Ships organisers, said the organisers will be changing and managing their operational queuing systems for today and tomorrow so that there is a smoother process.
He said this will include a more robust queuing system both inside the docks area before the venue gate and for the ships.
He warned visitors that today’s sessions at 2pm and 3pm are sold out and will be busy, with an amount of queuing.
Many angry people have taken to social media to voice their frustration at having to queue round the town for nothing or missing out on their allocated time because of the confusion.
Commenting on CornwallLive’s Facebook page, Elizabeth Carne wrote: “We had 3pm tickets and arrived in plenty of time. It took half an hour to find a parking space as there was no dedicated park and ride so all the car parks had people driving round or waiting.
“When we got to the queue it was 3pm but the queue was so long it would have taken well over an hour to reach the end. We assumed that having tickets would allow us to go to the front but everyone before us had tickets too. It said on the website that ticket holders would be fast tracked, but that was not the case.
“They obviously sold far too many tickets. We left without waiting as it could well have been 5pm before we reached the docks and our time slot would have run out. It was an absolute shambles.”
The team behind the festival admitted there were a few stressful hours in the middle of the day yesterday but insisted only people with pre-booked tickets arriving for their allocated time-slot should come to the docks as everyone else will be sent away.
They also said they have been reviewing what happened yesterday on day one and will bring in changes for the rest of the week so the whole thing is much smoother.
The tall ships ticketed visits will again start at 1pm and run until 7pm.
Mr Wilcox added: “Thank you to everyone for their patience and understanding yesterday and we’re very pleased to hear that lots of people enjoyed their visit to, and onto, the impressive Tall Ships yesterday.”
