Coronation revellers in Glasgow have hailed the historic event, despite the screens at the city's cathedral failing at the vital moment. The crowd at the iconic church shared their delight after King Charles was crowned - despite them missing the moment itself.
The group of less than 100 gathered at Glasgow Cathedral to watch a live stream of the event at the church on Saturday. It was a slow start as the doors opened at 9.30am with just a handful of people taking to the seats, but around an hour later dozens of people started to arrive.
Many of the seats that had been placed out for the event remained empty, however, and the majority of the crowd were tourists, with very few locals in attendance. It was a typical day of mixed weather in Glasgow, with equal moments of torrential rain and blue skies - but as the clock neared 12pm the sun started to split the sky as excited revellers inside the building prepared themselves to watch King Charles receive his crown.
They were left gutted, however, as right at the pivotal moment the screens went blank - with those seated letting out an almighty sigh. Many of the crowd, panicking that they would miss the most important part of the ceremony, scrambled to find their phones as they quickly tried to stream the event.
It was a disappointing finale in what would have otherwise been a fantastic, although quiet, event at a fitting location. The screening, however, did give many of the royal fans who were unable to make the trip down to London to mark the occasion, a chance to celebrate north of the border.
Malcolm Crook, 70, from Carntyne, told the Record: "I thought I'd come down here since it's a holy place, to make that symbolism since I couldn't be at Westminster.
"I was hoping to enjoy the whole thing - and some of it was okay - but I left after the TVs packed up. It was very disappointing - they shouldn't advertise it if there was a chance it wasn't going to work.
"The person sitting next to me managed to get it up on their phone but eventually we had enough and left. If the TVs hadn't stopped it would have been a great event. At least I got to see some of it."
Janae Mitchell, from Phoenix in Arizona, travelled to watch the big event at the cathedral while holidaying in Glasgow. The 53-year-old said: "We realised that the monarchy isn't a big deal in Glasgow and this was the only place that we found publicly that we could come down and watch it together as a group.
"We wanted to watch it as it hasn't happened in 70 years. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity, so it was disappointing to miss the big moment. Even right from when we arrived and sat down at around 10.30am it kept cutting in and out and then it got right to the good part and everyone at once just went 'uuugh'.
"It had been so quiet in there before that and everyone then started watching on their phones - thank goodness for technology. It was funny just looking up and everyone was glued to their phones."
Elad Shalev, 35, who is holidaying in Glasgow from Israel, said: "It was nice to watch it with other people but we were disappointed to miss the moment. I'm a tourist here so I was looking for somewhere that was live streaming it to watch it with others.
"I walked 50 minutes from my hotel to watch the Coronation - and then it cut out. Eventually I was able to watch the moment from an old lady's phone. It's a real shame but they said that no one is able to fix it and it was out of their control."
Josephine Griebsch is originally from Frankfurt in Germany but currently volunteers working with autistic children in Aberdeen. The 20-year-old, who travelled to the cathedral to watch the ceremony with her dad Ingolf, added: "We came down to specially to watch this event, so it was disappointing. Right at the most important moment it cut out.
"Then everyone pulled out their phone at the same time and there was an echo of the commentary. I have to admit that was funny. We were surprised by how little people were there. We are from Germany and we've noticed the Scottish aren't too excited about this kind of thing so that was a surprise. We wanted to share this moment with others but we were a bit surprised at that."
A Glasgow City Council spokesperson said “It’s disappointing this happened at the moment of coronation however these technical difficulties are out with our control.”
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