Pattaya-
Pattaya City Mayor Poramese Ngampiches and relevant officials held a planning meeting tonight, December 20th, 2022, to prepare for the three day Countdown Festival at the end of this month.
Pattaya City officials are predicting the largest crowds in three years due to the Covid-19 pandemic and after crowd estimates at the Fireworks Festival were greatly underestimated, are over preparing for the New Year. The fireworks festival in November was originally estimated to have 100,000 visitors but actually had closer to 500,000, clogging roads for hours across Pattaya.
Pattaya held a Countdown festival in 2021 but it was greatly toned down and had many restrictions limiting crowd size such as mandatory vaccine proof required and Covid testing. Those measures are gone this year and the lineup of artists is even bigger, ensuring that crowds will return from December 29th-December 31st at Bali Hai Pier.
The countdown festival in 2020 was canceled at literally the last minute due to Covid-19, crushing many businesses.
Pattaya City is also taking measures to control the size of crowds, acutely aware of the horrific crowd crush incident in South Korea during Halloween festivals.
Full and finalized plans will be out within days and The Pattaya News will give full details at that time as the final rules were still being set in stone as of press time.
