Petition calls for New Year’s Eve party in Shaftesbury Square

After the triumphant return of the big screen to Shaftesbury Square, Cool FM breakfast show DJ’s Pete Snodden and Paulo Ross have launched a petition calling for New Year’s celebrations to take place there.

The petition – which has nearly 2,500 signatures – says: “It’s been a while since we last had an official New Years Eve celebration held in Belfast.

“We do Halloween and Christmas so well, it makes sense. We propose… ‘Party under the Big Screen at Shaftesbury Square 2017. Fireworks, a ball similar to Times Square in New York. Musical performances and a fireworks display.”

Snodden also spoke of the idea during his radio show: “It’s One thing we don’t have that I think needs to change. We used to have it years ago, the big New Year’s Eve celebrations.

“People used line up from City Hall all the way to Royal Avenue and there were big events all over. Since the screen is back in Shaftsbury Square it should be back. It’s our Times Square. We could stick a stage under the screen and we just have a big party.

“We close off Shaftesbury Square, bring everyone into the city, Translink could do the night buses. So why don’t we do that?”

Nearly 2500 signatures have been raised by the petition and it seems it won’t be hard for the CoolFm breakfast DJs to bring the event to life.

While the Tab believes that calling Shaftesbury Square “Our city hall” is just a tiny bit of an overstatement, it is actually a good idea. New Year’s Eve is notoriously shit in Belfast with surging prices everywhere from bars to clubs to taxis. Maybe a free party in the city could help this. Let’s just hope Snodden isn’t in control of the decks.

If you’d like to sign the petition click here.