bitchy | King Charles’ coronation will feature bleachers, so the crowds won’t look sparse

Here are more photos of King Charles and Queen (Consort) Camilla in Germany last week. I’ll be fair: their state visit to Germany seemed like a success, in that they got a good-to-great reception wherever they went and Germans seem to like them. I read one piece which was trying to Britsplain why the Windsors are popular in Germany and it boiled down to “they’re fancy but Germans don’t have to pay for them.” In any case, there were no major gaffes from Charles or Camilla, but on the other side… it didn’t seem like the domestic British media was obsessed with covering their entire trip. Charles’s speeches got some attention, as did Camilla’s jewelry, but beyond that… the reaction seemed to be a big yawn. Speaking of, coronation planners are so worried about the thin crowds for Charles’s coronation, they’re already planning on some visual trickery to make it seem like the streets are full of well-wishers and supporters:

Football-style terraces will be deployed at King Charles’s Coronation next month to make crowds appear more packed in photographs amid fears of low attendance. Coronation organisers plan to put the public in tiered seating by the side of the road during the King’s procession, rather than allowing onlookers to stand on the pavement. The initiative is expected to improve the view for well-wishers standing further back in the crowd, but is also designed to make it look better in photographs.

A source close to proceedings said pictures will show a “wall of heads” behind the monarch as he proceeds through central London, in a similar way to spectators behind speakers at political rallies. The plans come amid fears that King Charles’s Coronation will look less popular when compared with photographs of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, when an estimated three million people packed the streets of London to watch her pass.

“They are massively terrified about comparisons with 1953 and his mother’s coronation,” said a source. “There will be tiered seating so the crowd looks bigger. They’re worried about it looking a bit s—.”

New polling by More in Common shows that more people say they do not intend to celebrate or watch the Coronation than will. In a survey conducted earlier this month and shared with The Telegraph, 36 per cent say they will watch or celebrate the event; while 46 per cent say they will not. A similar number – 39 per cent – say the event will be worth the estimated £100 million cost, while 46 per cent say it will not.

Luke Tryl, More in Common’s UK director, said: “What with the psychodrama of Harry and Meghan, the disgrace of Prince Andrew, and the cost of living dominating the public’s mind, the Palace is going to have to work hard to convince people to tune into a Coronation that many don’t think is worth the cost. If the prospect of an extra Bank Holiday isn’t enough to get people excited, the Palace really has its work cut out.”

[From The Telegraph]

“The psychodrama of Harry and Meghan,” truly, two people who left that salty isle over three years ago are at the top of the grievance list?? Anyway, congrats to the commenters who called this months ago: it’s giving Trump Inauguration. It’s giving sparse crowds and septuagenarian temper tantrums. It’s giving panic at the disco Chubbly. What’s also amazing is that the palace keeps leaking sh-t about how “the king is sanguine” and “everything is fine, of course Charles isn’t worried.” How many Republic protesters will be on those bleachers? How many egg-tossers?

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.