An event at Waterstones’ flagship Piccadilly store descended into chaos as attendees faced overcrowding and mass confusion.Some at the bookshop’s BookFest 2025 said the conditions were “dangerous” and that the event devolved into “hell on earth”.Comments on this particular TikTok uploaded by @saf.reads read:"Waterstones needs to do better. People have been warning them with the increasing popularity to start doing a ticket system, making things safer and more accessible and overall organising things better. But they were ignored and boom you’ve got an unsafe overcrowded and overstimulating environment that everyone hated and physically struggled to be in, let alone those with disabilities/ overstimulation issues. They should know better because you get something just one thing go wrong and that crowd panics… yeah no."
