Last year, what is normally one of the busiest weekends of the year for the town of Blackpool was ruined by an attempt to make money out of the annual illuminations switch-on event, which was replaced by two concerts held on the Tower Festival Headland with previously free tickets on sale at a fairly high price. Thankfully, it has been decided to revert to holding a free event for 2014, leading to some hopes that the tramway may not have this weekend completely spoilt this year.
In 2013, the main Friday night event was a concert by Irish pop band The Script, whereas in past years multiple acts had performed to cater for different tastes; a format which is expected to return for 2014. It remains to be seen what exact format the switch-on event will take, but hopefully any events will be confined to just the actual illuminations switch-on night. As part of last year’s cash-in attempt which ended up losing a considerable sum of money, a second concert featuring Madness was also staged the following day, resulting in a split tram service operating on the first two days of the illuminations season. Due to temporary seating being placed over the tram tracks, trams operated between Starr Gate and Foxhall and North Pier and Fleetwood, with passengers having to walk around the concert venue to change cars. Although operating this system on the Friday evening is far from ideal, at least scrapping the Saturday evening show would allow the town and its transport systems to resume some sort of normality for the first illumination Saturday evening of 2014. This would also allow Blackpool Transport to operate illumination tours, as the iconic feature cars were noticeably absent for the first two nights last year, causing further disappointment for anyone who wanted to view the famous light display by tram on the first weekend.
It would be even better if the event could return to its previous home at the Central Car Park, which would allow trams to run undisrupted – but that would mean admitting that the new promenade venue was a bad idea, which is probably wishful thinking! However, at least Blackpool Council have listened to some of the criticisms directed at last year’s events, and have responded with a further change to that format, which does deserve to be applauded. Hopefully this will result in an event that local residents and visitors alike will be happy with, and one that will keep the operational headaches for Blackpool Transport to a minimum.
I think the fact that the promenade venue is a bad idea was proved at the first event when the police ordered the organisers to stop the event and evacuate the venue because of approaching bad weather.
Perhaps FTS or other tram orientated organisation ought to suggest to the Tourism purse holders that some funds be released in the direction of the heritage fleet operating more frequently and on themed itineraries beyond mere illuminations tours, and point them towards Melbourne and San Francisco where the latter actually operate two real Blackpool trams as a tourist attraction – more than Blackpool does 350 days a year!