Showtown job losses less than a year after opening with big changes behind the scenes
PLUS: Council tax plans and our recommendations for the week ahead
Hello and welcome to The Blackpool Lead.
In today’s edition we reveal job losses at Blackpool’s Showtown museum less than a year after it opened.
Changes at Showtown mean the chief executive has moved on to ‘a new challenge’ while the council’s own company has been brought in to help steady the ship.
The attraction has been popular with visitors - of which high numbers have been touted - but balancing the book could be proving in difficult at least in part thanks to free entry offered to people living in Blackpool.
We’ve also dug into the reports that Blackpool’s Sea Life centre could be available for sale.
“The first year of any new business is a challenging one.”
Jobs have been lost at Blackpool’s Showtown museum, which has been open for less than a year and cost millions to launch, The Blackpool Lead can reveal.
It comes as the council-owned company running the Sandcastle Waterpark on the Promenade in South Shore is brought in to help run the attraction after a “strategic review”, with current chief executive Elizabeth Moss leaving for a “new challenge”, town hall bosses have said.
It has sparked concerns about the venue’s financial health - with one councillor saying there are “serious questions” to be answered.
But council leader Lynn Williams said there is “no doubt” the future of the museum, which is paying £250,000 a year to lease space in the Sands Building in Bank Hey Street in the town centre, is “secure”.
She told The Blackpool Lead: “It is a fantastic addition to the town and we know it is loved by residents and visitors alike.
“The first year of any new business is a challenging one.
“I have every confidence that the right changes are being made to ensure a sustainable future.”
Showtown, which celebrates the town’s rich past and whose exhibits include the Charlie Cairoli collection, late musician George Formby’s ukulele and comedian Peter Kay’s famous purple suit, opened last March (despite originally hoping to open almost three years earlier).
Exact visitor numbers are not known publicly but in September the venue, which is operated by the Blackpool Heritage and Museum Trust, said it had welcomed 50,000 people.
But how many of those paid to get in also remains unknown; while visitors are charged up to £15 each, Blackpool residents get free entry.
Recently, there has been a visible push to get more people through the doors.
On Monday evening, as a crowd of hundreds gathered on the Comedy Carpet to watch escapologist Andrew Basso free himself from a tank while handcuffed upside down in 1,000 litres of water, host and TV trickster Paul Zenon urged people to head to Showtown, promising “fun for all the family”.
Zenon, 60, who reportedly worked in a resort joke shop as a youngster and has had a lengthy television career as a magician, gave a talk at the museum on Thursday as part of the Showzam! festival.
And family tickets were launched late last year, it is understood, priced at £27 for a family of two, £35 for a family of four and £39.95 for a family of five.
Spencer Philips, chairman of the Blackpool Heritage and Museum Trust, said: “Since Showtown opened in March, tens of thousands of visitors have been through the doors. The feedback has been fantastic, with people of all ages being entertained by the six interactive galleries along with exhibitions and workshops.”
Showtown has indeed been well received by those who have been. It has an average rating of five out of five on TripAdvisor, based on around 200 reviews, while it has a 4.6 out of five rating on Google after around 120 reviews.
But Philips said: “Throughout the first year of operation we have been closely monitoring visitor figures and the associated operating costs.
“Once the initial launch activity had subsided, a clear pattern of peak usage appeared.”
He added: “In order to ensure that staffing levels match operational requirements, we have proposed a new structure. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the loss of a number of posts.”
A town hall spokeswoman said a “strategic review” led to a decision by the “Showtown Charity Board for Blackpool Operating Company Ltd (Bocl) to become the management agent for Showtown, assisting the Showtown team and Charity Board with strategic oversight to ensure it remains a stable of Blackpool’s cultural tourism offering for years to come.”
Neither the council nor Bocl said, when asked, how many people have lost their jobs.
But it is around 15% of the workforce, The Blackpool Lead understands.
Bocl, which already helps to run the Sandcastle and counts a number of resort councillors as directors, is headed by Kate Shane, who left entertainment firm Merlin last year to become the managing director of the council’s leisure portfolio.
She was followed from Merlin by former Tower manager Kenny Mew, who is now helping to run Showtown on a day-to-day basis while outgoing boss Moss serves her notice on gardening leave, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.
Conservative councillor Paul Galley, leader of the opposition party at Blackpool Council, told The Blackpool Lead: “After a huge £13m investment, Showtown must succeed. However, widespread speculation on social media about its financial health – along with a management restructure within 12 months of opening – raises serious questions.
“As an outsider looking in, I’ve never fully understood Showtown’s financial model based on publicly available information.
“Why, for instance, is £250,000 being spent annually on rent instead of (the council) using that sum towards a mortgage for a building directly on the Promenade – one the town could ultimately own?
“Instead, Showtown occupies a space in a largely empty black building with no Promenade access. My own visit highlighted another issue: it’s difficult to spend money there. Residents enter for free, the gift shop is positioned behind visitors as they exit and there is no cafe.
“The council must be open about Showtown’s finances – how it’s being run, what debts it has accumulated and what support is required to ensure its success.
“This isn’t about blame but about securing the future of what is meant to Blackpool’s museum. If it truly belongs to the people, then the people deserve to know its financial state and be involved in shaping its future.”
Concerns about Showtown have emerged at a sensitive time for the resort’s cultural and tourist offerings – and for Kate Shane’s former employer, whose Blackpool attractions include Madame Tussauds, the Sea Life centre, The Gruffalo & Friends Clubhouse and Peter Rabbit: Explore & Play.
There have been reports that Merlin is in talks with bankers to sell its Sea Life sites, with only those in Manchester, Birmingham and London off the table.
Merlin said: “Like any well-run business, Merlin regularly reviews its estate to ensure it reflects the company’s long-term growth strategy.
“We continue to invest in our attractions globally – opening 24 new rides, attractions and experiences in 2024.”
Merlin was asked specifically by The Lead about the Blackpool Sea Life centre, including whether jobs there are safe. A spokeswoman said it would not comment further or on specific sites.
Meanwhile, the town’s heritage tram service is suspended until at least the summer, leading to widespread consternation and upset.
The service is also run by a council-owned firm, which was told it had questions to answer over the suspension, with suspicions voiced that it was caused by financial woes rather than, as suggested, safety fears.
A number of redundancies have been announced there, too.
Showtown was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (£4.4m), Coastal Communities Fund (£1.75m), Northern Cultural Fund (£4m), the Lancashire Economic Partnership Growth Deal (£1.5m) and Blackpool Council (£1m).
Last September, The Blackpool Lead exclusively revealed that Showtown had acquired a collection of memorabilia containing blackface artefacts.
Staff at the venue had found at least two examples – a flyer and photographer both from the mid-1920s - out of hundreds of historical items bought from an unnamed, private collector.
Rather than going on display at Showtown, the blackface items were due to go in the History Centre archives at the Central Library in Queen Street, where they were due to be only available for viewing on request.
The decision to buy the items was made by council officers and not debated by councillors at a public meeting.
They were bought at “market value”, documents showed, with the local authority spending “a couple of thousand” and the rest of the cash coming from council partners, a town hall source said.
The total sum spent is unknown.
Not buying the collection would have deprived the museum of a “unique collection”, council papers said.
But they added: “The collection does contain sparse references - in a small number of items - to blackface performance.
“However, the collection team are trained in the current practices of managing this sensitive historical topic.”
On Moss, the council said: “Liz has decided the time is right for her to move on to a new challenge, having successfully opened Showtown in March 2024 and then contributing to the first year of operation.
“Liz has worked tirelessly to achieve this and is committed to ensuring a smooth transition to build upon her work to date.
“We wish Liz well for her new challenge and thank her for her commitment to Showtown.”
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Council tax increase expected in Blackpool
Councillors are being asked to approve an increase of almost five per cent in council tax and budget cuts of £8.6m when they meet next week.
The rise will mean residents living in an average band D property in Blackpool will pay £2,025 a year towards council services, although the final bill will be higher because it will include additional charges for the police and fire service.
If approved the proposals, which include a council tax increase of 4.99 per cent, will set out spending of £218m on services in 2025/26.
Blackpool has received an extra £17.7m in funding from central government this year, which includes £1.65m to cover the increase in national insurance costs.
However this will not be enough to cover the expected total cost of £5.9m, including £1.1m for the council’s wholly owned companies such as the Winter Gardens, leaving a £4.2m gap.
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