Hyde Park: Blur fall silent

While most of Britain was focusing on the terrible sound at the early part of the closing ceremony - was it awful or a kindness that Sugg's terrible voice was so hard to hear? - people over in Hyde Park were having a rotten time of a whole different stripe.

Or, rather, a similar stripe, as Blur's supposed farewell show suffered from rotten sound.

Some people got to hear the gig, but not most, as Hyde Park organisers tried to balance selling 40,000 tickets for a soundsystem turned down to serve 10,000.

Mark Beaumont is cracking on the NME blog:

Here is the news: the place is no longer fit for purpose. If you’re going to sell 40,000 tickets for an event, you HAVE to provide an event that’s capable of catering for 40,000 people, whether that’s sufficient toilets, food stalls or audible music. OK, so organisers legally have to pander to the seven-and-a-half uber-wealthy local residents who complain about the noise. Hyde Park’s sound levels are now fit for, say, 10,000-capacity events.

Of course, NME could help bring this about. They could refuse to promote, review or accept advertising from massive events at Hyde Park. Somehow I suspect they won't do that.