Behind the scenes at Pleasure Beach Resort Blackpool during its closed season

Transcript

00:00I'm here today at the famous Pleasure Beach Resort here in beautiful Blackpool

00:06and I'm going to come and find out some behind-the-scenes information so let's

00:11go in.

00:13Hi so I'm Andy Highgate, I'm the Operations Director at Pleasure Beach

00:32Resort and you're joining us at a very exciting time because we're due to open

00:37reopen for the 2025 season the Nickelodeon land for February half-term

00:43on Saturday so it's quite an exciting time we're getting everything ready and

00:48what a lot of people don't realize when they come to an amusement park is all

00:53the work that goes on over what we call the closed season so we close at the end

00:58of November and then if you think nothing happens over the winter then

01:01you'd be very very wrong but certainly for engineering is the busiest time of

01:06the year to make sure they do all the maintenance work all the preparation

01:11work to hand the rides back to us and site working operations and what that

01:16means is we run the rise so when engineering I've got everything in tip

01:20top condition and the rides back we have to do training in-depth training with

01:25our staff to make sure that by the time the visitors come through the door

01:29everything is ready to go and running as it should. And this is one of the

01:33workshops where carriages and rides are brought in, they're stripped back, repaired,

01:38serviced and made sure that they're completely ready for guests in the new

01:43season.

01:46This is part of the big one which has been brought in for repainting and

01:50elsewhere we've got some characters that are being a bit battered by the sea air

01:56that have been repainted. We've got a bear there from Avalanche which is

02:01having its mechanical bits looked at, we've got things from the ghost train

02:06which have had a new outfit and this is Nickelodeon land which has had a fresh

02:11coat of paint looking really fresh. Andrew Milner is a sign writer at Blackpool

02:17Pleasure Beach, he's been there for 23 years and he does all of these

02:21wonderful signs all by hand he also works with vinyl as well but it's to

02:27give the sense of heritage as well as you know some of the more modern aspects

02:32but keeping that heritage going with these beautiful hand-painted signs that

02:37you might not appreciate but you'd certainly miss if they weren't there.

02:44This is inside the famous carousel as you can see the horses have been repainted

02:49it's ready to go and the organ has been serviced recently so that's ready to

02:54rock as well.