The story
Blackpool Illuminations in Blackpool
Since first switching on electric promenade lights in 1879, Blackpool has built an elaborate autumn-to-winter illuminations trail stretching several miles along its seafront, mixing large illuminated tableaux and light sculptures with decorated illuminated trams, extending the resort's tourist season well beyond summer with a spectacle built entirely around light after dark.
Blackpool switched on its first electric street lights along the promenade in 1879, decades before most British towns had reliable electric lighting at all, and that early flex of civic modernity eventually grew into the sprawling seasonal light display the town still runs each autumn.