20,000 back Blackpool for 2029 UK City of Culture title

One of nine places longlisted, the bid focuses on our origin as the world’s first mass seaside resort created for the working-classes. It showcases our invention, creativity and the radical idea that culture and joy should belong to everyone.

Although full details of the programme, artists and “showstopper” events are being kept under wraps throughout the competition, our proposition is based around four themes:

• We’ll Show You will present Blackpool’s culture at its most ambitious - from major performance and immersive spectacle to dance, music, broadcasting and artist-led interventions;
• The Welcome Inn will build on Blackpool’s traditions of hospitality, exchange and shared enjoyment;
• Sea Change will connect culture with care for people, communities and the environment;
• It’s Like Blackpool Illuminations in Here! will use the 150th anniversary of the Illuminations to connect local participation with international artistic and technological innovation.

The independent judges challenged Blackpool to “be the most Blackpool it can be”, something the programme achieves, in the words of one consultee, “in buckets (and spades)”.

Blackpool Council has worked closely with local cultural organisations and creatives, including Creative Blackpool, LeftCoast, Aunty Social, House of Wingz, Bootleg Social, The Old Electric, Abingdon Studios and Blackpool and the Fylde College to ground the programme in community co-production.

Over the last few months, those conversations have opened up amazing ideas about how to accelerate Blackpool’s cultural future, shaped both from within the town and through a wide network of regional and national partners, with over 60 partners contributing and expressing support including Factory International, the V&A, Southbank Centre, British Esports Federation, the Crafts Council, Opera North and Marlborough Productions.

The bid has attracted the support of all Lancashire MPs and the leaders of the Lancashire Combined County Authority as well as neighbouring Fylde and Wyre, which will form part of a new local authority on the Fylde Coast in 2028.

The artistic themes include the potential for collaboration across seaside towns and cities in the UK and beyond, with further details to be developed if the bid is successful. Hamish Hamilton, the Blackpool-born internationally acclaimed live event director responsible for Superbowl halftime shows since 2010, and the TV coverage of the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic opening and closing ceremonies, has already committed his involvement to the project.

So far, 20,000 people have backed the bid, which there is still time to do at the VisitBlackpool website.

A shortlist of up to four places will be announced in mid-October, with the final decision announced in January 2027.

For more information, contact Scott Butterfield, Head of Strategy at Blackpool Council: scott.butterfield@blackpool.gov.uk