Uber held a 'pool party' in London - but taxi drivers found a way to crash it

Uber held a two-day "pool party" in East London on Thursday and Friday, but the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) found a way to spread its message by parking a giant, anti-Uber message directly across from the swimming pool.

The pool party was held at Boxpark in Shoreditch, a trendy pop-up venue. The company hired some models to film a promotional video for the party on Wednesday:

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But the LTDA decided to crash the party by parking a giant billboard van directly across the street:

Business Insider/James Cook

The ad specifically targets Uber, claiming that there were 32 allegations of sexual assault against Uber drivers in 2015. It's also parked on double yellow lines, which is an offence under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The LTDA did not respond to a request for comment.

To make things worse, a rainstorm on Thursday night shut down the party on its second day. Here's what it looked like:

Business Insider/James Cook

Uber provided the following statement to Business Insider about the billboard:

"Our pool party is celebrating not just the 1.3 million miles already saved from our car-sharing service uberPOOL, but the end of the English summer too. And true to form for the British weather we've seen one of the hottest days of the year on the first day of the event followed by a downpour!

"More than 300 people came along yesterday, but it's a shame the LTDA didn't join in. Instead of parking a van on a double yellow line, they could have celebrated the £65m of taxpayer money they got from the Mayor this week."