29th August - 3rd November 2008
Blackpool Illuminations Local Heads
Local Heads by Andy McKeown
Back in November 2007 Blackpool Illuminations Department decided to hold a public competition to design a new feature for the Illuminations. They had a great response and received 85 entries from artists, designers and schools. The selection process was carried out by a panel of judges including Councilor Maxine Callow and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. The winning design was Local Heads by Andy McKeown. This is 1960's inspired pop art style images of people. People could submit images on a web site or be taken by Andy at a number of events in the local area. The images are then converted by Andy's own hands into very stylish pieces of colourful art. These images will be mounted in light boxes and mounted on the promenade for all Blackpool's Illuminations visitors to see.
On Tuesday 5th August the selection for the Local Heads Illuminations featured images took place at Blackpool's Odeon Cinema just opposite Blackpool Illuminations Rigby Road depot. At the cinema all the 600 images were shown in a kaleidoscope type presentation. Andy McKeown, the winning designer, was there to press the virtual button that ran his specially written computer program to select 288 images from over 600 images that were submitted.
The event was attended by Councilor Maxine Callow, Jane Seddon (head of Blackpool Tourism), Michael Wilcock (head of Illuminations), BBC Radio Lancashire, Rock FM, and Granada TV and invited members of the public that had either had their photos taken or submitted them.
When the time came to press the button the audience were all keeping their fingers crossed that their photo was selected. Then within a few seconds all the winning images were displayed for all to see!!
Blackpool Illuminations department now have just 24 days to produce 288 prints, install them in the feature boxes and put them up on the lamp posts. The Local Heads feature will be located North of Glyn Square towards the tableaux features on the North Promenade.
View the Local Heads winners below
