Qualla: Blackpool Illuminations

Blackpool Illuminations: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mark S Jobling. Original uploader was Mjobling at en.wikipedia, Public domain. Eight electric arc lamps came on along Blackpool Promenade on 18 September 1879. The local press called the effect artificial sunshine. Mains electricity had only just become a thing - the Edison incandescent bulb was still a year away from patent - and most of England still ran on gaslight. Already, before the Tower existed and before the trams clattered along the front, Blackpool was turning itself into a place that would not let summer end. Today the Illuminations stretch six miles, use over a million LED bulbs, lasers and animated tableaux, and pull tens of thousands of visitors a night through autumn and into the new year.

Read more: Blackpool Illuminations on Qualla

Image: Mark S Jobling. Original uploader was Mjobling at en.wikipedia | Public domain

Blackpool Illuminations: A Season That Refused to End

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mari Buckley, CC BY-SA 2.0. The first display recognisable as a modern Illumination came in May 1912, when Princess Louise opened a new stretch of promenade called Princess Parade. The seafront was draped in what newspapers called festoons of garland lamps, about 10,000 bulbs in all. Blackpool's chamber of ...

Read more: Blackpool Illuminations on Qualla

Image: Mari Buckley | CC BY-SA 2.0

Blackpool Illuminations: A Fifteen-Year-Old Switches On

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Steve Daniels, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1935 the Mayor of Blackpool, Alderman George Whittaker, was due to perform the Switch-on. On the day, he met fifteen-year-old Audrey Mosson, the reigning Railway Queen - a national title given to a young woman from a railway family - and on impulse asked her to do the honours ...

Read more: Blackpool Illuminations on Qualla

Image: Steve Daniels | CC BY-SA 2.0

Blackpool Illuminations: From Garland Lamps to Lasers

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Steve Daniels, CC BY-SA 2.0. It takes about twenty-two weeks to put the modern Illuminations up and nine weeks to take them down again. The annual budget runs over two million pounds. Most of the network operates on low voltage now - 12V and 24V - and in 2003 a switch to more efficient technology cut electri...

Read more: Blackpool Illuminations on Qualla

Image: Steve Daniels | CC BY-SA 2.0

Blackpool Illuminations: A North-South Divide in Six Miles

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mark S Jobling, Mjobling at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Most visitors come from the north - the north-west of England in particular, plus Scotland in droves. The lights are not really a national event so much as a regional pilgrimage. Llewelyn-Bowen, who lives in the south, has joked about a bit of a north-south divide in awareness. T...

Read more: Blackpool Illuminations on Qualla

Image: Mark S Jobling, Mjobling at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Blackpool Illuminations: The Lights We Still Switch On

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geoff Royle, CC BY-SA 2.0. Strip away the celebrity switch-ons and the designer brands and what the Illuminations are, really, is an act of municipal stubbornness. A seaside town that knew its season ended in August decided that the season would not end. Whatever recession or war or shift in holiday taste ...

Read more: Blackpool Illuminations on Qualla

Image: Geoff Royle | CC BY-SA 2.0