Blackpool Illuminations - Modern Day Illuminations

Modern Day Illuminations

Most visitors drive through the Illuminations by car, coach or bus. There are also open top trams which run along the tramway as well as horse-drawn landau. At Bispham there is a special walkway for the tableaux which also includes mixed media in the various large tableaux displays. The Illuminations cost £1.9M each year to stage.

For the 2007 Illuminations, Interior designer and television personality Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen best known for his appearances on the BBC television programme, Changing Rooms was commissioned to create special feature on Central Promenade outside Blackpool Tower, named Decodance. Llewelyn-Bowen had stated that he fell in love with what he called "Blackpool's high-kicking glamour and historical reputation for giddy glitz" while filming for the Holiday programme.

The displays at the cliffs from North Shore to Bispham contain forty large tableaux holding more than 5,000 square metres in surface area. There is a pedestrian walkway running the length of the tableaux displays which are set back from the Promenade beyond the tramway. Blackpool Tramway runs along the entire length of the Illuminations and there are over one million lamps in the display. In 2007 the Egyptian tableau which includes Egyptian sarcophagus, which eerily opens to reveal a mummified secret, returned after an overhaul. Also at Bispham on the clifftop was a new BBC Portal video screen.

Also in 2007 a new Doctor Who display appeared with monsters from the last three series of the show. In January 2008, it was stated that this section had been the most successful feature ever built in the Illuminations. And at Gynn Square on Gynn Island, a Space Invasion with an opalescent mothership hovering more than 40 ft in the air, battling it out with eight spaceships arranged in formation defending their territory. The display which used colour-changing LEDs, was created from the popular alien craft which used to adorn the Promenade.

In October 2007, a laser beam installed on the tower for the duration of the annual Illuminations was criticized by Astronomer and presenter of The Sky at Night television programme, Patrick Moore who said, "Light pollution is a huge problem. I am not saying we should turn all the lights out, that is not practical, but there are some things which are very unnecessary. The Blackpool Tower light is certainly something I do not think we should be doing. I very much oppose it." The beam could be seen 30 miles away. Moore called for the beam to be stopped. The Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston said the laser has added to a spiraling problem affecting astronomy.

At the sixth annual Banquet and Ball on 9 January 2008, organized by the holiday trade umbrella group, Blackpool Combined Association, to raise funds for the Lights, the new Head of Illuminations, Michael Wilcock revealed new plans for the future of the Illuminations. These include,

• Plans to make the Lights, which at present are funded 80% by Blackpool Council, as self-sustaining as possible, with plans to increase business sponsorship.
• New, all year round, triumphal arches to be erected at either end of the Illuminations, "selling the Blackpool message."
• Extending the Doctor Who section for the 2008 season, "with eye-catching battles between Daleks and the Tardis."
• Increased promotion for the 2008 Illuminations season.
• Establishment of a Friends of the Illuminations group.

In 2008 the Illuminations ran from 29 August to 2 November.