Case Study: Chinese Lunar New Year Celebrations
Protecting the Lunar New Year Festivities in Birmingham and Manchester
The Lunar New Year in 2025 welcomes the Year of the Snake, according to the Chinese lunar calendar. Celebrated by millions around the world, this is a time for cultural traditions, family reunions, and hopes for good fortune in the coming year.
In 2025, Lunar New Year falls on January 29, kicking off the 16-day Spring Festival.
Chinese and South-East Asian communities in England celebrate the Lunar New Year by hosting parades featuring dragon dances, fireworks, and lantern festivals, welcoming the new year with excitement and good fortune.
Crowdguard were delighted to be asked to help protect the Lunar New Year festivities in Birmingham and Manchester.
Birmingham Hippodrome Square Lunar New Year celebrations.
H-Stop providing pedestrian safety for the Lunar New Year celebrations in Birmingham’s Hippodrome Square
Birmingham Chinese New Year Festival welcomed thousands to Birmingham City Centre. Birmingham Hippodrome were supported by the Crowdguard team to enhance public safety by providing a comprehensive Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM) plan for the 2025 festival.
Birmingham came alive with visitors from across the region and crowds gathered to enjoy a packed vibrant performance programme on The Uber Eats Stage, with lion dances, street food, funfair rides, craft market stalls and free family activities across the festival.
With safety of the pedestrian audiences a top priority, we deployed Husson H-Stop HVM units at a number of the key junctions and ingress/egress points surrounding Hippodrome Square, which was at the heart of the expanded footprint of the celebrations this year.
The H-Stop was the perfect solution for Birmingham’s Lunar New Year celebrations, as it offers a rapidly deployable, rated HVM protection, which can be easily removed once the main celebrations were over, so that the city streets and the regular traffic flow could get back to normal.
H-Stop protect the perimeter of Hippodrome Square in Birmingham for the Chinese New Year celebrations.
Matt Evans, Head of Festivals & Sites at Birmingham Hippodrome said:
“We’re thrilled to have worked with Crowdguard to ensure the safety of audiences while they attended such a fun and joyous festival in Birmingham City Centre. From initial scoping of Hostile Vehicle Mitigation options, through to training in rapid deployment on site, we were very pleased with Crowdguard’s specialist support”.
Deborah Ainscough, Founder & Director at Crowdguard added:
“We were proud to support Birmingham Hippodrome in delivering a safe festival – Husson H-Stop is the only HVM system available that has been tested and certified as a single 1200mm unit. An ideal HVM solution for the rapid installation and removal required for Birmingham Chinese New Year Festival with its expanded footprint in the city’s streets”.
Manchester Chinese New Year festivities.
H-Stops were deployed at the main ingress/ egress points for Manchester’s Chinatown, in advance of the Lunar New Year festivities
The heart of Manchester came alive with colour, culture and celebration as the city celebrated its much-anticipated Chinese New Year festivities. Taking place on 1st and 2nd February 2025, this year’s celebrations were a dazzling display of traditional and contemporary Chinese culture, cantered on the iconic Chinatown district and featuring the legendary Dragon Parade through the city streets.
The highlight of the festivities was the Dragon Parade, a magnificent procession featuring a stunning traditional dragon, acrobatic performances, dancers and drummers.
Working in partnership with Chevron Traffic Management, we again opted to utilise the robust and flexible H-Stop as our HVM solution. We deployed 14 H-Stop units at key junctions and ingress and egress points around Manchester’s Chinatown, to keep the thronging crowds safe from the threat of a hostile vehicle incursion.
H-Stops were deployed to allow pedestrian permeability, but to prevent against a hostile vehicle incursion.
Brendon Cloherty, Contract Manager at Chevron TM said:
“Chevron Traffic Management, working together with our HVM partners at Crowdguard, utilised the H-Stop HVM on our Chinese New Year event in Manchester City Center. The system is simple and fast to deploy, providing our client with added peace of mind knowing that the crowds are safely protected behind it. Mike and his team were extremely helpful from initial contact right the way through to collection after the event.”
Get in touch with the Crowdguard team to discuss your HVM requirements. We will give you the best possible advice and provide a turnkey service to help you plan and implement strategies to keep people safe in crowded places, with market-leading solutions installed by experts, designed to help you mitigate risk.
Tel: 0161 507 3434
Email: info@crowdguard.co.uk
