THE organisers of a major fireworks display in Worcester say next year could be the last time they run the event – if people continue to avoid paying the entry fee.

The Round Table, which organises the Pitchcroft display every year, says it struggled to break even after Saturday’s event, and blamed the number of people watching from outside the course boundaries, not paying an entrance fee.

Despite running for more than 25 years, Greg Jones, of Worcester Round Table said its future is uncertain unless more people can be persuaded to pay on the gate to attend the event.

Several thousand revellers came to this year’s display, he said, but despite early estimates of a profit, the show barely broke even.

He admitted that poor weather in the hours leading up to the event, plus rumours that it was being cancelled, may have hit attendance figures.

But he said a worse problem was that a lot of people chose to avoid paying to enter the racecourse and watched the display from the riverbank or from the path between the Swan Theatre and the racecourse.

“Perhaps people think that the display is arranged by the council and paid for out of taxes, but it isn’t,” Mr Jones said.

“It’s put on by the Round Table to raise money for local good causes.”

And he said volunteers who approached people watching the show for free, received abuse when they asked for a contribution to the collection.

“People who watch it without paying for it are depriving these good causes of support, and when some of our volunteers went out to ask them to contribute, they got a lot of abuse,” he added.

Admission to this year’s event cost £5 for adults, £2 for children and £12 for a family of two adults, two children.

“This year we barely covered the costs, with hardly any left over to support the good causes, and if it goes on like this, we will have to consider the future of the event,” said Mr Jones.

“It has been held for more than 25 years, and we don’t want next year’s event to be the last, but it may be unless we get better support.”