WEYMOUTH’S Big Christmas attracted thousands of people into the town centre as the festive celebrations got under way – and organisers are hoping thousands more will turn up over the coming weeks.

Organised by the Weymouth Business Improvement District (BID), there is a month-long Christmas extravaganza in an attempt to try and attract more people into the town centre to do their festive shopping.

Starting on Friday, the town’s Christmas lights were switched on, and the ice rink and Santa’s grotto were both officially launched, with thousands of people descending on the town centre to enjoy the Yuletide fun. On Saturday, the celebrations continued with pop-up pantomimes performed in the town centre.

According to the figures of the footfall cameras located in six different parts of the town, there were more than 450,000 movements of people between December 4 and 6.

The cameras only record movements of people rather than individuals themselves, but the figures showed an increase of 12.3 per cent compared to the previous weekend’s figures.

There were some technical glitches throughout the event, including the ice rink melting after a chiller broke and electrical issues hampering the Christmas light switch-on. But Nigel Reed, manager of the BID, said overall the event had been a success.

He said: “Those that attended the event enjoyed it.

“The point of putting these things on is to give residents and visitors alike a good time when they come into the town centre.

“The more you encourage people into Weymouth, the more you give them something to do in the town, they will be more likely to go shopping and that’s what our main aim is."

“We know attractions such as the ice rink will bring people into town because there already a large According to the cameras, the hotbed of activity in the town was on the southern part of St Mary Street, which recorded more than 207,000 movements of people.

New Bond Street, where the ice rink was installed, was the second busiest, with almost 70,000 movements of people recorded.

Mr Reed said that it had been a promising start to the Big Christmas festival.

He added: “Because we didn’t hold it last year, we can’t compare the figures and the number of people in the town centre but we can see the weekend before which shows an increase of 12.3 per cent overall.

“Next year, we’ll be able to look at the figures and see what worked where and then plan our events around that to see if we can maximise it even more.

“We’ve got a lot planned for the next few weekends, we are really focusing on weekends, and hopefully a lot more people will come into town.”

To see all of the pictures from Friday night's event click here