On Saturday 30th August, tours of the Blackpool illuminations by traditional tramcar resumed for the 2014 season with three different trams in operation for this role. Although the illuminations were actually switched on the previous night, part of the promenade tramway was blocked off due to the switch-on ceremony taking place at the Tower Festival Headland and it was therefore not until the second evening that tours were able to commence.
The first illumination tour of 2014 was performed by the Frigate 736; its first public working of the year as its only previous outing with passengers this year had been for the famous Hilton Hotel mega private hire in June. Close behind was Balloon 717 which had also worked the last illuminations tour of 2013, and offered customers a top deck ride through the lights, although many people opted to wait for a feature car instead and therefore it departed approximately half full. The third and final tram to appear on tour duty was the ever-popular Western Train 733+734, appearing in darkness for the first time since the fitting of a diamond pantograph and mini-tower which, as predicted, is a lot less noticeable in the dark. Unfortunately a rare breakdown incident involving one of the Flexity2 trams caused some disruption to the tram service later on that evening and the potential for any of the trio to operate a second tour was lost, but otherwise the annual illuminations spectacle seems to have got off to a good start for the tramway and hopefully this will continue.
Saturday 30th August was also the second night of a series of events at the Tower Festival Headland, featuring excerpts from a selection of musicals, with a third concert scheduled for Sunday 31st August and due to be headlined by pop singer Rebecca Ferguson. This follows on from the actual switch-on event which featured music acts such as Texas, Little Mix and Pixie Lott although unlike the Saturday and Sunday events, this was a free concert. When this was first announced it was feared that the adjacent tramway would have to be blocked off for the whole weekend but thankfully this was not the case; instead the boarding around the arena was moved to allow a full tram service to operate from Saturday morning, with additional supervision during the events. Presumably this was made possible due to a reduction in capacity at the outdoor arena for the Saturday and Sunday events, although as the Saturday night show appears to have been nowhere near sold out this was hardly a major sacrifice for the organisers. It is likely that this event will be labelled a flop for the second year running and once again shows the folly of causing disruption for the sake of a few concerts which seem to struggle to attract much interest, and hopefully Blackpool Council will realise that stretching out the flicking of a switch into a three day event is not their best idea ever and focus on making the 2015 illuminations better instead!