Not all of it, just the half mile from Selfridges to Oxford Circus which isn't even 50% of the full road, but it is where the top shops are. It got very busy.
The plan wasn't just to empty the street of buses and taxis but to fill it with fun stuff to create a day out. You could buy burgers and churros, also line up for a free reading at the Poetry Takeaway, also listen to acts like Natalie Williams Soul Family with full BSL interpretation. The longest queues were for a beauty product wheel of fortune, a mass basketball hoopchuck and the chance to thwack a baseball. The Mayor doesn't usually plug soccer, only American sports he can entice to play over here.
The street was bedecked with flags which can stay up now the entire street's a Mayoral Development Area, also colourful vinyls underfoot whose application was more temporary but allowed journalists to get some really snazzy pictures of the event. There was also facepainting for the kids, live DJs for the youth and branded selfie frames for the egotistical. It wasn't an expensive transformation because a lot of local businesses got involved "to showcase Oxford Street's global fashion and retail identity", but it wouldn't have been cheap to stage either.
To make the point that traffic had been banished several interventions deliberately blocked the street. The most blatant was a 'living green wall' of trees at the Oxford Circus end concealing a Wishing Tree, while a display recounting Oxford Street's history filled multiple Y-shaped boards in the centre. Perhaps the most intrusive was a bar area near Bond Street station which funnelled passers-by onto narrow pavements, despite hardly anybody taking advantage of the canned spirits or £7 pints available within.
The event certainly brought out the crowds and seemed to be keeping them occupied too. But with all the throngs and obstructions it was actually much harder to walk down Oxford Street than usual, so perhaps an own goal key-messagewise. The real test will come when they kick out the buses and taxis for good, and then we'll discover if the existing shops are as much of a draw as one-off freebies and pop-up entertainment.
