Blackpool Pleasure Beach
Back To Blackpool - September 2021
Back to Blackpool! Our first event post covid lockdowns, and our first event weekender at Blackpool Pleasure Beach since May 2018. This event took place over three days in September 2021, things worked out that way because of Pleasure Beach's late night Friday offering. Instead of opening during the day they switched their opening hours to 4pm-9pm on every Friday in September, so we took full advantage of that and extended the event to the Friday evening too! So things started off with a ride takeover of the Big One after park close on the Friday night.
The following day started off with everyone meeting in The Hub, on the former space of the Wild Mouse inside the Pleasure Beach. On arrival, we noticed a nice touch from the Pleasure Beach welcoming us to the park with our logo front and centre on their screen in the hub. During event registration, we all had some breakfast which was a choice of sausage or bacon butties, and then shortly after we were officially welcomed to the event, and park, by Andy Hygate (director of operations).
Once everyone was fed and welcomed to the event, it was time for us all to head to Nickelodeon Land for two morning ERT sessions on Nickelodeon Streak and Blue Flyer. We had an hour to experience these rides exclusively before the Pleasure Beach publicly opened for the day.
Following on from the madness of two morning ERT sessions, it was free time on the park. That free time on park was used for many ride takeovers including multiple laps on the Log Flume, the standard "big boat" behaviour was in full flow with many soakings for us all, and after that we basically took over The Hub for all of the Oktoberfest shows on during the day. The atmosphere throughout the group was special, something that may never be recreated on an event like this again.
Following on from the afternoon entertainment, we all gathered opposite W&G Thrill-O-Matic for the final activity of the day, and that was a complete track walk around the Pleasure Beach Express. This is only the second time we'd done this, the first time was in July 2013 so it was a good chance to see ICON from a different perspective as well as getting close to where some of the Big One's retracking had recently been done.
The final day of the event started with breakfast in The Hub, it was at this point of the weekend the fatigue from the previous day and night had really set in, but luckily unlike on the previous day all of our team members made it on time on this occasion. Not naming any names here Mike.
Following on from breakfast, it was time to head into ICON garden which is in the ride area. At the time of writing, we're the only coaster enthusiast group who's had this level of access to ICON, and it was a fantastic opportunity for photos and videos! Our wander around ICON garden was concluded with insight from Andy Hygate about how ICON is set up in the morning, this is where we learnt about the under speed and over speed procedures they do before it opens to the public.