Pleasure Beach, Blackpool, is delighted to announce the launch of Nickelodeon Land which will open at Britain’s favourite tourist attraction in April 2011. Nickelodeon Land represents an investment of £10.3m.
This collaboration between Pleasure Beach, Blackpool and Nickelodeon, the number one entertainment brand for kids, will see a 6 acre area of Pleasure Beach transformed into Nickelodeon Land, which will feature 14 rides, 9 are brand new and 5 are extensively re-themed existing rides. Nickelodeon Land also includes themed retail and catering outlets.
New rides include SpongeBob’s Splash Bash, which is an interactive ride where riders have the opportunity to turn the jets onto their friends and blast pesky jellyfish with jets of water for a splashing time. Avatar Airbender allows riders to join Aang on an amazing adventure, spinning and soaring through the air on a giant disk. The Rugrat’s Lost River is a rollicking flume ride where you join the Rugrats on their quest to find the mythical Temple of Spoon.
Amanda Thompson, Managing Director of Pleasure Beach, Blackpool, comments, “We are delighted to welcome Nickelodeon to Pleasure Beach. Both of our brands represent fantastic family fun and Nickelodeon Land will combine Pleasure Beach’s reputation for amazing rides and attractions with Nickelodeon’s favourite fun characters to produce a wonderful attraction, which will wow visitors to the park.”
“Pleasure Beach is a first-class amusement park and popular destination for families in the U.K.” said Gerald Raines, Senior Director, Nickelodeon Theme Parks and Attractions. “This is an ideal location for Nickelodeon and a great opportunity to expand our global presence. We look forward to offering Pleasure Beach patrons experiences that are unique to Nickelodeon and based on fan favourites like SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer.”
Work on Nickelodeon Land will commence in the Autumn of 2010 and is scheduled to open in April 2011.
Keep up to date with all the developments at Nickelodeon land own website here:
JD Wetherspoons are set to open another of it outlets this time in Central Blackpool practically next to and under the iconic Blackpool tower.
The Albert and the Lion will be its second pub in the resort after The Auctioneer which is sited in Lytham Road South Shore.
Conversion work is now well underway and they hope to have the old Pricebusters building which sits on the corner of Adelaide Street West and the Promenade right in the shadow of the Tower open and trading by Friday July 2nd 2010.
Around £60,000 is being invested into the conversion and 40 jobs will be created in the town. As with most Wetherspoons pubs it will have one bar and be juke box and music free with strategically placed plasma screens sited around the seating areas for the viewing of sports and other hi profile events.
As with most Wetherspoon pubs this will be children friendly and will offer the usual competitively priced dining options and drinks. No doubt they will also continue their tradition of supporting the real ale industry by offering guest beers at various promotions through the year.
The siting of new pubs in Blackpool town centre has of the last few years been subject to strict regulatory checks due to an imposed saturation policy. Blackpool is seen as the party capital of the UK and as such as a huge influx of visitors over weekends through the year looking to party in the numerous pubs and clubs that litter the centre of the resort. Sadly some of these visitors do not exhibit their best behaviour and some pubs and clubs were seen to be exacerbating the problem by offerings cut price drinks promotions and the like which only fuelled the bad behaviour. This behaviour was impacting upon the traditional family trade in the resort who were staying away from the centre of town over weekend periods when the Stags and Hens and party offering was in town. The council then employed a saturation policy to ensure any further applications for licensed premises could be scrutinized and conditions set.
Wetherspoons of course present a family offering and as such are to be welcomed into the centre of the town where they can provide a much needed family dining option.
Finally it has always puzzled me as to how Wetherspoons decide on the names for their pubs and after a little research I was able to discover why this one is to be called the Lion and the Albert. In 1932 a poet by the name of Marriott Edgar put pen to paper to write poem. It went thus:
George Formby was born at 3 Westminster Street, Scholes, Wigan, Lancashire, as George Hoy Booth, the eldest of seven surviving children (four girls and three boys). His father (James Booth) was George Formby, Sr. (1875-1921), whose stage name was adopted from the town of Formby, Liverpool, was one of the great music hall comedians of his day, fully the equal of his son’s later success. His father, not wishing him even to watch his performances, moved the family to Atherton Road in Hindley, near Wigan, and it was from there that Formby was apprenticed as a jockey when he was seven and rode his first professional race aged ten when he weighed under 4 stone (56 lb; 25 kg).
The family then moved to Stockton Heath, Warrington and it was from there that George Formby Jr. embarked on his career in entertainment.
On the death of his father in 1921, Formby abandoned his career as a jockey and started his own music hall career using his father’s material. He originally called himself George Hoy (George Hoy was also his maternal grandfather’s name, who originally came from Newmarket, Suffolk, a famous horseracing town and whose family were involved in racehorse training). In 1924 he married dancer Beryl Ingham, who managed his career (and it is said his personal life to an intolerable degree – see biographies below) until her death in 1960. He allegedly took up the ukulele, for which he was later famous, as a hobby; he first played it on stage for a bet.
Formby endeared himself to his audiences with his cheeky Lancashire humour and folksy north of England persona. In film and on stage, he generally adopted the character of an honest, good-hearted but accident-prone innocent who used the phrases: “It’s turned out nice again!” as an opening line; “Ooh, mother!” when escaping from trouble; and a timid “Never touched me!” after losing a fistfight.
What made him stand out, however, was his unique and often mimicked musical style. He sang comic songs, full of double entendre, to his own accompaniment on the banjolele, for which he developed a catchy musical syncopated style that became his trademark. Some of his best-known songs were written by Noel Gay. Some of his songs were considered too rude for broadcasting. His 1937 song, “With my little stick of Blackpool Rock” was banned by the BBC because of the lyrics.[1] Formby’s songs are rife with sly humour, as in 1932′s “Chinese Laundry Blues,” where Formby is about to sing “ladies’ knickers” and suddenly changes it to “ladies’ blouses”; and in 1940′s “On the Wigan Boat Express,” in which a lady passenger “was feeling shocks in her signal box.” Formby’s cheerful, innocent demeanor and nasal, high-pitched Lancashire accent neutralized the shock value of the lyrics; a more aggressive comedian like Max Miller would have delivered the same lyrics with a bawdy leer.
George Formby had been making Gramophone records as early as 1926; his first successful records came in 1932 with the Jack Hylton Band, and his first sound film Boots! Boots! in 1934 (Formby had appeared in a sole silent film in 1915). The film was successful and he signed a contract to make a further 11 with Associated Talking Pictures, earned him a then-astronomical income of £100,000 per year. Between 1934 and 1945 Formby was the top comedian in British cinema, and at the height of his movie popularity (1939, when he was Britain’s number-one film star of all genres), his film Let George Do It was exported to America. Although his films always did well in Great Britain and Canada, they never caught on in the United States. Columbia Pictures hired him for a series, with a handsome contract worth £500,000, but did not circulate his films stateside.
Formby appeared in the 1937 Royal Variety Performance,[2] and entertained troops with Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) in Europe and North Africa during World War II. He received an OBE in 1946.[3] His most popular film, and still regarded as probably his best, is the espionage comedy Let George Do It, in which he is a member of a concert party, takes the wrong ship by mistake during a blackout, and finds himself in Norway (mistaking Bergen for Blackpool) as a secret agent. A dream sequence in which he punches Hitler on the nose and addresses him as a “windbag” is one of the most enduring moments in film comedy.
Formby suffered his first heart attack in 1952. His wife Beryl died of leukaemia on 24 December 1960 and he planned to marry Pat Howson, a 36-year-old schoolteacher, in the spring of 1961. However he had a second heart attack before then and died in hospital on 6 March 1961. His funeral was held in St. Charles’ Church in Aigburth, Liverpool and an estimated 100,000 mourners lined the route as his coffin was driven to Warrington Cemetery, where he was buried in the Booth family grave.
Pat Howson was well provided-for in Formby’s will, but when she died soon afterward, it was believed that the fortune was jinxed.
For many years Fred Knight was Formby’s chauffeur, driving him to the studios and music halls across the country. At that time Formby had a Lanchester, a make long gone, but considered quite the limo of its day.
Blackpool boasts one of the longest and most varied theatre seasons in the country with an amazing array of hit West End musicals, sell-out touring concerts, elegant ballets, opulent operas, tributes to the brightest stars, circus, illusion and cool, contemporary productions all enjoyed by thousands of theatregoers every week.
From the magnificent Tower and Empress Ballrooms to the imposing stage of the Opera House, from Matchams matchless Grand Theatre to the stunning purpose built ice arena, and from the relaxed atmosphere of cabaret bars to the much loved seaside tradition of Pier end Theatre; the history and individuality of each of Blackpool’s entertainment venues make a trip to see your favourite show or artiste an exciting and magical experience.
In the town centre Blackpool Tower and Circus, icon of England dominates the skyline, offering 518 feet of entertainment for the whole family. Jungle Jims, Towering Adventure land is the result of a £3million investment. Two huge Inca gods guard the gateway to the Lost City, which houses a variety of exciting tasks for children to complete in the hunt for buried treasure. The amazing play area complete with three giant ships that are available for party hire means that birthday boys and girls can treat their friends to a party like no other they will ever have experienced as they take over a ship with complete with themed characters . The circus arena, a theatre in the round with gold gilt ceilings and a seating capacity for up to 1400 guests.
Dancing in the Ballrooom Blackpool Tower
Home to the award winning Tower Circus, voted the UK’s best for 4 years running and it’s amazing water finale with over 40,000 gallons of water filling the arena every show. It is a truly breathtaking and unique venue.
Blackpool Tower Complex
Tower Ballroom
The original ballroom, the Tower Pavilion opened in August 1894. It was smaller than the present ballroom and occupied the front of the tower complex. The Tower Ballroom was built between 1897 and 1898 to the designs of Frank Matcham who also designed Blackpool Grand Theatre and it opened in 1899. It was commissioned by the Tower company in response to the opening of the Empress Ballroom in the Winter Gardens. The ballroom floor is 120ft x 120ft and is made up of 30,602 blocks of mahogany, oak and walnut.Above the stage is the inscription, “Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear” from the poem Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare. Each crystal chandelier in the ballroom can be lowered to the floor to be cleaned which takes over a week.
From 1930 until his retirement in 1970 the resident organist was Reginald Dixon, known affectionately as “Mr. Blackpool”. The first Wurlitzer organ was installed in 1929, but it was replaced in 1935 by one designed by Reginald Dixon. The current resident organist is Phil Kelsall who has been playing the organ at the Tower since 1975 when he started in the circus.
The ballroom was damaged by fire in December 1956, and the dance floor was destroyed along with the restaurant underneath the ballroom. Restoration took two years and cost £500,000, with many of the former designers and builders coming out of retirement to assist, the restaurant then became the Tower Lounge.
The BBC series Come Dancing was televised from the Tower Ballroom for many years and it has also hosted shows from Strictly Come Dancing including the grand final of the second series on 11 December 2004.
The Blackpool Junior Dance Festival (“Open to the World”) has been held each year in the ballroom since 1964.
Dancing was not originally allowed on Sundays; instead, sacred music was played. The ballroom also originally had very strict rules including:
“Gentlemen may not dance unless with a Lady” and
“Disorderly conduct means immediate expulsion”.
The ballroom has had a number of resident dance bands including Bertini and his band, and Charlie Barlow. Other smaller dance bands have also appeared as residents including the Eric Delaney Band and the Mike James Band.
Under the management of Leisure Parcs,and the direction of bandleader Greg Francis, the Blackpool Tower Big Band was reformed in 2001 after an absence of 25 years. The New Squadronaires, The Memphis Belle Swing Orchestra and The Glenn Miller Tribute Orchestra also performed.[22] Themed nights were also introduced along with the sixteen piece orchestra, with resident singers, including Robert Young, Tony Benedict, Lynn Kennedy, and Mark Porter.In 2005 the Empress Orchestra became resident in the ballroom alongside the specially created and smaller Empress Dance Band.
During the Industrial Revolution the economy of the United Kingdom moved from being primarily agricultural to a manufacturing base.
This had profound implications for how communities and towns were created throughout the land. Prior to industrialisation the vast majority of the UK population lived in rural settings literally living off the land.
As factories were built they of course needed workers and the people moved into communities close to these factories given the attraction of regular wages and continual work were something these people had not previously been able to rely upon.
So the towns in Northern England and Southern Scotland were established, they were called Mill towns as the settlement’s that developed around one or more mills another name for factory were mainly based upon cotton and textile manufacturing. Some of the great towns and cities of the UK can trace their origins back to this time and they include such names as Burnley, Bolton, Preston and the big one Manchester which was at one time called Cottonopolis such was the profusion of cotton mills within its limits.
Before Beeching Blackpool Main Station was Central on what is now the Central Car Park. The track line went along what is now the Yeadon Way and the main routes to the huge car parks in the centre of town from the M55
The notion even entered literature with one of the most famous references to the early mills being in the poem/hymn “Jerusalem” by William Blake, in which “those dark satanic mills” were referenced. Around that time trade routes were being opened with the East India trading Company importing raw materials from Europe and Asia which were then carried to the mills to be turned into fine clothing and other garments. This in turn led to the creation of the canal systems in Northern England as a cheap way to move supplies from the sea ports to the mills of the inland towns.
Blackpool in its Heyday had Dozens of Fully Laden Trains Arrive Daily from the East Lancs Mill Towns
So we have a significant resettlement of the population into towns across the North of England and their recreational needs have to be considered, amongst this of course was time off work. The notion of Trade Unions were still a way off at this stage so these people would only have been allowed perhaps a week or two off per year which would have been unpaid with a proportion of that time taken at the important Christian festival of Christmas. So Wakes weeks were born. Around the same time the railways were being extended and part of this meant a line had been run into Blackpool. Up until the arrival of the railway Blackpool was a small town that stood in East Lancashire on the coast of the Irish Sea and was not really famous for anything. Anyway the Wakes weeks were to change all this. Each town would designate a separate week in the late spring, summer or early autumn for its workers to have their ‘week off’. There were a couple of reasons for this, it allowed manufacturing to continue and output to be kept up to minimize supply problems and it meant the whole town could decamp en-masse for it’s weeks holiday schools included thereby not inconveniencing anyone else. Now these people needed somewhere to go and spend their holiday so in essence Blackpool was born as a holiday resort. It had enough accommodation and sufficient entertainment to keep everyone happy. The fact the weeks were staggered meant that at no one time did the town become overwhelmed with visitors and there was plenty of space available in the many bed and breakfast guesthouses and the like that sprung up all over Blackpool.
Thousands of Holidaymakers Flocked to Blackpool for the Wakes Weeks
These visitors poured money into the resort which allowed it to be developed further and this saw the Pleasure beach, piers and Illuminations features born. Then Blackpool Tower was built to further astound visitors.
During the last 25 years of the twentieth century globalisation took hold across the world meaning textile imports from all over the world could be brought in cheaper than it cost to manufacture product in the UK. This led to a decline in textile manufacturing around the same time as the Thatcher revolution was taking place with her wide ranging reforms on the British Coal Industry, as such the wakes weeks gradually petered out to a point the only real one recognised today is the September weekend where it seems that almost the entire population of Glasgow decamps to Blackpool to take up residence for a few days. The town is flooded with Scottish accents and the banks have to lay on additional security transport in the days after to ship all the Scottish banknotes north of the border.
Blackpool has launched the nostalgic week-long initiative to remind East Lancashire families who are looking to holiday at home because of the recession just what it has to offer.
The tourism chiefs in Britain’s premier resort have unveiled a week-long package of offers and events from August 9-16 which celebrate the holiday ritual.
They include special family rail travel offers from the historic cotton towns of East Lancashire and beyond, and an exhibition celebrating the glory days of the Wakes holidays at Blackpool North station.
At the start of Blackburn’s July 1945 Wakes Week, the first since the end of the Second World War, holidaymakers queued at the town’s railway station from early morning to catch one of 23 trains.
The following week 14 trains set off from Accrington and it was estimated that 250,000 people crammed into the resort that Saturday.
According to reports at the time, it was also estimated that the holiday-makers from East Lancs spent almost £1 million on their break from work.
One of the highlights of the Wakes Week celebration will be a special 1950s steam train excursion on the Scots Guardsman to Blackpool from Carnforth, calling at Blackburn and Preston before arriving at Blackpool North Station.
The journey will take place on Sunday, August 9, coinciding with Blackpool’s famous air show, which will feature the Red Arrows.
Coun Maxine Callow, at Blackpool Council, said: ““We believe the initiative will strike a chord with communities like Blackburn, Burnley and Accrington.”
Bookings for the special steam train excursion can be made with the Visit-Blackpool team on 01253 478222.
Blackpool is the number one tourist resort in the UK and its history suggests that it always seemed destined for this kind of greatness.
Before the 18th century, Blackpool was simply a quiet hamlet by the sea surrounded by forests and impassable bogs. Then, in the 1700s, the upper crust of society began spending their summers at Blackpool, drawn mainly by the lure of the sea which, during those days, was believed to have the power to cure diseases.
By the middle of the 18th century, even the middle and lower classes were taking summer sojourns at Blackpool to benefit from the sea’s curative powers. It was not long before hordes of people trooped to Blackpool and could be seen paddling in the sea in search of health and a cure for what ailed them.
The year 1781 marked a turning point in Blackpool’s history as two men, Thomas Clifton and Sir Henry Houghton, constructed a private road that made Blackpool more accessible to people. It is no coincidence that 1781 also marked the first time stagecoaches from Manchester would travel to Blackpool. By 1782, the stagecoaches would be travelling from Halifax as well.
During the latter part of the 1780s, four hotels had been established in Blackpool to accommodate the town’s ever-growing number of tourists. However, despite all this, the development of a Blackpool economy and the growth of its population remained slow.
This all changed with the dawn of the 19th century when an entrepreneur named Henry Banks started buying huge parcels of land and constructing new building around Blackpool, a task that was later continued by his son-in-law, John Crocker. Banks, known as the Father of Blackpool, erected the town’s first holiday cottages while Crocker built its first assembly rooms. Many of these structures still stand today.
The year 1821 marked the consecration of the St. John’s Church in Blackpool.
With these developments, the population of Blackpool grew quickly from less than 500 in 1801 to over 2,500 by 1851.
Despite the growth of Blackpool, travelling there was still a difficult task, usually taking a day from Manchester and two days from Yorkshire. This ended in the 1840s with the development of the railway system that connected Blackpool to the industrial towns of the north, which made traveling to Blackpool easier and cheaper. The development of the railway system propelled Blackpool into a period of prosperity.
By 1852, gas lighting was introduced in Blackpool, followed by piped water in 1864. Construction of the Promenade along the seafront began in 1856 and was completed around 1870. At the time, entertainment in Blackpool consisted wholly of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a simple shack that provided drinks, music and dancing.
In 1863, the North Pier was constructed and quickly became a favorite gathering place of upper-class tourists. The North Pier was the first of Blackpool’s three famous piers.
The Central Pier, then known as the South Jetty, was erected in 1868. It had theatres and assembly rooms as its main attraction, although the pier only became popular when open-air dancing for the masses was introduced in 1870.
The South Pier was completed in 1893, mainly as a complement to the development of South Shore, which had well patronized 32-acre amusement park that had a huge American Carousel as its main attraction.
The development of the Pleasure Gardens began in the 1870s. It included a lake, theatre, ballroom, race course, skating rink, football and cricket grounds, aviary and monkey house. It was complemented by the Blackpool Aquarium and Menagerie, which opened in 1875.
The Winter Gardens opened in 1878 and featured an indoor promenade and pavilion. One of the novelty rides at the Winter Gardens served as the inspiration for the first permanent electric tramway in the UK, the Blackpool Tram, which became operational in 1885.
In 1876, Blackpool was hailed as an official Borough. In 1877, while suffering from economic depression, the Blackpool Council launched a grand affair and carnival in the piers to spur tourism and economic growth, highlighted by Blackpool’s pioneering street lights. The Blackpool Illuminations were borne. More than 100,000 visitors from out of town were on hand to witness the show.
In 1885, Blackpool became the first town to have an electric tram system with the formation of the Blackpool Electric Town Company. The first tram rides were free of charge and were used a great deal for the transport of farm produce and building materials for use in the fast-growing town.
Blackpool strengthened its entertainment industry in the 1890s with the construction of the Opera House in the Winter Gardens Complex and the circus and ballroom at the Blackpool Tower. The decade also saw the opening of the South Pier, the Grand Theatre and the famous 220-foot Gigantic Wheel, which was then the biggest in the world.
The 1900s marked the development of the Golden Mile and the Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
Pleasure Beach, Blackpool, is delighted to announce the launch of Nickelodeon Land which will open at Britain’s favourite tourist attraction in April 2011. Nickelodeon Land represents an investment of £10.3m.
JD Wetherspoons are set to open another of it outlets this time in Central Blackpool practically next to and under the iconic Blackpool tower.
