Transport For NSW Misleads Over 3000 People in NYE Fireworks Ballot Mishap

Transport for NSW has issued an apology for a notification that accidentally informed over 3000 people that they had won the ballot to watch Sydney’s world-famous New Years Eve Fireworks show at the exclusive Cahill Expressway.

The Cahill Expressway at the Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of the most spectacular vantage points to watch the fireworks on New Years Eve.

A NYE Fireworks Ballot System Gone Wrong

Due to its popularity, Transport for NSW began operating an annual ballot system with winners selected at random. This system aims give everyone a fair chance of celebrating the New Year with the prized view.

Ten thousand tickets were made available in October to ballot entrants. Winners have two weeks to redeem their tickets, before they are re-entered into the draw to be won by other entrants.

On Tuesday, 350 spots were left to be reallocated to lucky entrants in a final batch. However, an internal mishap resulted in emails to over 3000 entrants, wrongly informing them that they had won an exclusive spot at the NYE fireworks show.

Transport For NSW Secretary Issues Apology

Transport for NSW Secretary Josh Murray spoke to 2GB yesterday morning to explain the issue and apologise for the error.

“I guess the good news is, we did have 10,000 winners. The bad news is, Transport has disappointed around 3,000 people who were told that they could attend, and then when they went to log on and claim the tickets, they’d then been told that there’s none left,” he said on Thursday.

“I want to apologise for that. We’ve let people down on what should have been a very exciting process of getting that email.”

In a statement from Transport for NSW, Mr Murray said that this “shouldn’t have happened”.

“This isn’t just about free tickets. It’s the excitement of telling your family and friends and looking forward to a night out together. We apologise for the disappointment we caused.”

“I will ensure we work closely with event organisers to understand how this slip-up occurred and to ensure we are more careful with notifications.”

A “Simple Clerical Error”

“We’re really appreciative to all the affected people who’ve graciously worked with us to sort this out. It turns out it was a simple clerical error when sending the final batch of tickets to the hopeful recipients.”

“It’s a bit like when you’re thinking about emailing something about your boss and you send the email to your boss instead,” Mr Murray told G2B.

“There was some soul-searching and some double-checking of the numbers, but once we started contacting people, we knew that we’d stuffed it up.”

“I want to avoid comparisons with the ability to run a chook raffle, as we’ve conducted this event benefiting thousands of people for more than 10 years. But for a night that often delivers a bit of drama, we didn’t mean to add more,” he said in a statement from Transport for NSW.

Mr Murray emphasised that those impacted will be offered priority tickets to next year’s New Years Eve fireworks event.