LIFESTYLE
London Caroling Event Canceled After TikTok Sends 7000 Revelers To ‘Overrun’ Neighborhood
Columbia Road Carols
A long-running Christmas caroling event in London has been canceled after it went viral on TikTok and more than 7,000 people showed up, prompting safety concerns.
For the last decade, Columbia Road Carols has been hosted by St. Peters Bethnal Green in partnership with local shopkeepers each Wednesday in December. The church wheeled a piano outside near the Columbia Road Flower Market and community members gathered to sing carols, drink mulled wine, and do some Christmas shopping.
But videos of one of the weekly December events went viral on TikTok, leading more than 7,000 carolers to turn up last week, causing the neighborhood to become dangerously overrun, according to a statement from Rev. Heather Atkinson, the church’s vicar, and church wardens Andrew Rixon and Maria Wyard.
The crowds of over 7,000 present last week were of such volume on the road that there was a danger to public safety. We are grateful to God and to those working at the event that there were no serious injuries, the statement read.
Columbia Road carols has been a great partnership between the shopkeepers on the road, the local community and the parish church. As the church we cherish these relationships. This decision is in support of our community which had became dangerously overrun, they wrote.
Church leaders said they came to the decision on the strong advice of the police and local authorities.
We sincerely hope that the shops will now be able to remain open on Wednesday evenings, they wrote. To those who were planning to come to Columbia Road to shop, we hope you will return to do that. For those who are coming for carols alone please go local. Find whats on at your local church. There will be carol events, services and celebrations of all sorts in the rest of December.
TMX contributed to this article.
