Blackpool Illuminations

by Anon

The Lancashire coastal town of Blackpool became a tourist attraction with the development of the railways, firstly as a place for cotton workers and their families from the mill towns of East Lancashire to spend a day on the golden sands, and later as a place for them to spend a whole week beside the sea.

Nowadays, people flock in their ten of thousands for almost 10 weeks each Autumn to see the dazzling illuminated display of lights and tableaux along the seafront promenade. Blackpool Illuminations are now one of the biggest tourist attractions in the United Kingdom, with coachloads of people enjoying not only the lights but the Pleasure Gardens (a massive funfair), the many indoor attractions (pubs, bars, clubs and variety shows), the piers and Blackpool Tower (modelled on the Eiffel Tower in Paris), the theatres and the Winter Gardens with its Ice Dancing Spectaculars.

"The Big Switch On" is normally reported as a major event on National television news programmes and takes place on the Friday following the August Bank Holiday Weekend, with the lights being turned off on the first Sunday in November.

The First Night switch-on is always conducted by a celebrity, and the crowds attending make travelling to the event and movement around Blackpool (consistently for their 66-night duration) a problem on most evenings.

The Blackpool Illuminations started in 1879 with just EIGHT electric arc lamps and holidays flocked from the Lancashire mill towns to see "artificial sunshine". The basic idea remains the same, but now people flock in their tens of thousands to see 6 miles of shimmering lights, with the traditional light bulb sharing the honours with fibre-optics, lasers and LED technology.

The lights commence near Starr Gate at the North end of Blackpool’s North Shore and run all along the seafront promenade to Bispham. Between the road and the sea wall for almost the whole length of the run, are the tramlines which carry Blackpool’s equally famous trams, most of which are also bedecked with lights, some transformed into readily identifiable tableaux.

Each year familiar faces, cartoon stars, celebrities, figures and objects can be seen shining down from approximately 100 miles of lights (festooned in strings) or the forty large tableaux (a display covering more than 5000 square metres). Overall there are 1 million individual bulbs, as well as 5,000 floodlights and spotlights.

Equally lit up are the rides, amusements and entertainments to be found at the Pleasure Gardens and the famous Blackpool Tower.

On top of all this, the three piers are also highly decorated, with the famous Burton’s Wagon Wheel towering into the sky, looking majestic as it turns around, completely filled with people who are often enjoying their first ever ride on a ferris wheel.

The author has requested that his identity be kept private

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