Blackpool Central - 2019-2029

[Ladyofthelake]

Blackpool Council have announced a new. £300 million, development on a 'landmark location' on The Golden Mile - Blackpool Central. It will be the biggest single investment in Blackpool for over a century and when complete it is estimated it will bring over 600, 000 additional visitors a year to Blackpool and create 1000 jobs.



The development will see a number of indoor attractions on the site, including:

Flying Theatre
The UK's first Flying Theatre providing guests with an unparelled, real flying sensation. It will be fully immersive, including on-board effects.



Virtual Reality Experience
The world's most advanced virtual reality experience offering a whole body, fully immersive hyper reality with guests being able to free roam. The VR experience will use state-of-the-art visuals and body tracking, smell, touch and feel and use custom motion simulators.



Alien Diner
A fully themed bar and event restaurant which, from the concept images, looks to be a rollercoaster restaurant.


Multi-media Exhibition
The world's first "Greatest Mysteries" multi-media exhibition. aimed to be both educational and entertaining, the exhibition will allow guests to discover astonishing unsolved mysteries and will be fully immersive.



Adventure Land
A fully themed indoor interactive entertainment centre. Will include Roll-glider - a free falling hang gliding sensation; high ropes courses; and adventure trail; and climbing walls.



Thrill and Gaming Zone
An area featuring thrill and family rides, arcade games, inflatable attractions, laser tag arena, bumper cars, and more.



And more...
There are also plans to include shops, hotels, restaurants, and a new parking area.

Blackpool Council say their aim is to create a year round attraction which creates a range of jobs for local people and is something unique and unlike anything else in the UK. It is designed to underpin Blackpool's regeneration and generate an extra £75 million a year for the local economy. It is designed to be built in 3 phases, with phase 1 - the Flying Theatre, Alien Diner, Thrill nd Gaming Zone, VR experience and Adventure Land, and multimedia exhibition set to open in 2024, phase 2 in 2026, and phase 3 in 2029.

All of the attractions will be themed to a series of novels written by Eric Von Daniken - 'Chariots of the Gods', which are based on unsolved mysteries of the past including the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico, ancient cave drawings, and alien visitors.


This looks to be a huge investment for Blackpool and will certainly give the Merlin theme parks some competition. Although there is a Rollercoaster Restaurant type attractions shown, it is not known if this will be operated by Merlin, or if Blackpool Council have licenced the concept direct from Mack.

So, what do we think to all this then?

[Swarm Chris]

It has a flying theatre, so it's got my interest!

The VR experience, if it works, would be extremely immersive and could be a big draw for the site. Depending on the story they use, we could see something that is fun to explore, or scarier than many horror mazes. Thankfully they've got a few years until installation, so the technology will hopefully be more mature and reliable than we've seen elsewhere. The image quality by then will also be markedly better than Derren Brown's Ghost Train and could be verging on being photorealistic.

A fully indoor interactive, essentially theme park, is just what the UK needs and could give a year round attraction. With the council putting this forward, I guess we have a greater chance of seeing it come to fruition.

[Michelle]

This plan sounds very impressive and very ambitious, I think I'll reserve judgement for a little while longer.
Something else to do in Blackpool when the weather is poor can't be a bad thing.
It has however given me more to add to my reading list, as the novels the attractions are based upon sound interesting!

[abigsmurf]

I saw a glimpse of a powered inverted coaster in the video, that got me interested, hopefully it's not just there as "this is what an indoor rollercoaster looks like". A flying theatre is great too. A place that you can spend a whole day at without leaving would help bring people spending a week there in the holidays.

The worry with this is it's another Segaworld. High tech rides, large entertainment complex but it zero investment after opening so it fell to bits and kept shrinking until it disappeared. Also a common tactic for developers is to get the project ready to start, only to say "oh, this is costing way too much, we'll have to scrap it unless you let us build another 300 apartments" and to strong arm the council for the planning permission (sea-view apartments are easy money)