Festive season goes off without a hitch

Christmas and New Year went off with a bang in Bondi.

Shore Thing, the New Year’s Eve event in Bondi Park and the Bondi Pavilion was sold out with 15,000 revellers seeing in the new year.

But despite the increased patronage of this event and other festive events like New Year’s Eve at the Dudley Page Reserve and Christmas Day at the Pavilion, both almost sold out, police report no major incidents and say the crowds this year were very well behaved.

And the southern side of Bondi Park had a family atmosphere on New Year’s Eve with residents coming out to celebrate.

A Waverley Council spokesperson said extra contract cleaners worked through the night on New Year’s Eve and council cleaners took over in the morning to make sure the town centre, the park, the beach and surrounding area was ready for business immediately.

Additional buses were also brought in to disperse the New Year’s Eve crowd, ensuring that most were gone within an hour of the event ending.

Mayor Sally Betts said it had been the best New Year’s Eve in terms of crowd behaviour, litter and noise and that the council had received no formal complaints.

‘We were really happy with how it went. Police enforced non-drinking areas and we had no trouble,’ she said.