The people of Chester have responded with mixed reviews to the city's Christmas lights switch on.
Thanks to a computer glitch, the hundreds of people who turned out to see the festive lights were left in darkness after the bulbs stubbornly failed to work .
They were supposed to burst into display during the spectacular Christmas parade as it made its way through the city streets, but despite the system working fine on earlier tests, they didn't come on as planned.
Many disgruntled Cestrians took to social media to express their disappointment at the malfunction, with James Thompson saying it was 'dreadful'.
'Not great when I had two children under three and I didn't get why Santa wasn't in the parade,' he said on Twitter.
Tiffany Elliott said on Facebook: "If you took your kids to see the lights switch on and they didn't go on, aside from what I'm sure was a fab parade, isn't there the small matter of the lights being the entire purpose of visiting!? You can't just stand about waiting for a glitch to be sorted."
"Absolutely hopeless," Stuart Martin added. "It's not like they haven't had the time to practice is it?"
But for much of the negative reaction to the lights display, there was also praise for the event, especially the 12 Days of Christmas parade which was described as 'probably the best to date'.
"The parade was absolutely splendid though and the town heaving with happy people," Ali Salmon said.
As for the glitch, "it was nobody's fault really, just one of those things," according to Joshua Sutton.
And Hannah Allen wrote: " I think this year's parade was brilliant. The change of theme was refreshing and each of the sections looked fab. Clearly a lot of hard work gone into them.
