Blackpool Illuminations

30^th August 2024 - 5^th January 2025

Illuminations Designers

The design of the Illuminations, until very recently, has all been carried out in-house by the Illuminations Team. But for the first time in 2007 an outside designer was added to the team. I say added as its not just being able to design that counts it being able to design and work with the whole illuminations team that really counts. The team are a small highly skilled and experience bunch of very enthusiastic people dedicated to the yearly Illuminations spectacular.

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen

After the success of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowens Deco Dance in 2007 Laurence was again asked to design a new feature. The feature is under construction and thanks to the dedication of the team should be ready for switch on night.

Laurences 2008 creation will be a most spectacular sight, it will have a very special place in Blackpool's 6 mile long show. It will be located on the East of the promenade in the small gardens opposite the Water Park. Not only will the feature be a spectacle of design but the lighting will be out of this world to match. In front of the feature will be a number of fountains that will dance and change colour to music!! This feature is to be called Venus Reborn.

Andy McKeown

Andy is the winning designer from Blackpool Illuminations first public competition to design a feature for the Illuminations. Andy designed a feature called Local Heads, this is inspired by 1960's pop art. This will be a wonderful feature as it is not only really bright and colourful but each of the 288 heads will be of individuals who either submitted their images to the web site or attended Blackpool Illuminations Open day on the 10th July. Andy was there taking photos of visitors, he will use selected images to create the local heads artwork. I had an opportunity to not only chat to Andy at the open day but to also take his photo, he seems very excited to have the opportunity to create such a master piece that will be seen by so many people in coming years. The photos that go into creating the art work will be chosen at random and then Andy has the job of actually preparing the images and creating the finished coloured images. The images will be printed on a special resin material that is amazingly bright even in daylight.

All the images have now been processed and they are displayed north of Glyn Square. They have been arranged like tetris blocks so each lamp post is different.