Crowds of New Yorkers have turned Central Park into a fun battlefield, chasing each other around with water guns. The water fight was huge, with over 64,000 RSVP’ing to the event on Facebook.
Social networks have been flooded with enthusiastic reviews of the event.
“Awesome people of all ages who know how to have fun. Sometimes I just sit back on the grass and watch. It's truly a beautiful sight to see everyone extremely happy and having fun with no problems. Every year this happens and every year I watch in awe,” an FB post summed it up.
However, the event risked being canceled: it hadn’t been approved by Central Park authorities as they were worried about the potential damage to the grass.
On Thursday, a Twitter message with the #WaterfightNYC hashtag got a response from Central Park’s officials saying the event was “not a permitted event & will be shutdown.”
Waterfight NYC said on their Facebook page that the large number of RSVPs "made the Parks Department [worry] about the lawn and littering which are our worries too."
To mitigate concerns, Waterfight NYC urged participants to gather in different areas of the park.
"I'm sorry for the inconvenience but this shouldn't affect us very much. Make sure to only wet the people with water guns and look for big open spaces with lower traffic to wait for others!" Waterfight NYC posted.