January marked a special occasion at the Blackpool tower ballroom as it was time for the all of the Edwardian chandeliers to be lowered to the ground in order for them to be cleaned and serviced.
This year was different as for the first time in over 50 years the rope mechanism that holds up the two biggest chandeliers was set to be changed.
Blackpool Gazette reporter Luke Patrick spoke to the Operations Manager of Blackpool Tower, Aaron Edgar about how it all works.
This year was different as for the first time in over 50 years the rope mechanism that holds up the two biggest chandeliers was set to be changed.
Blackpool Gazette reporter Luke Patrick spoke to the Operations Manager of Blackpool Tower, Aaron Edgar about how it all works.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, my name is Luke Patrick, I'm reporter for the Blackpool Gazette. I'm here at the
00:03Blackpool Tower ballroom for the annual cleaning of the Edwardian chandeliers
00:07in the Tower ballroom. However, this is an extra special occasion as for the first time in 50 years
00:12the rope mechanism that holds the chandeliers up is being changed.
00:16I spoke to the operations manager of Blackpool Tower, Aaron Edgar, about how it all works.
00:30So, if you could introduce yourself and tell us why, tell me why we're here today?
00:47Yes, my name's Aaron Edgar, I'm the head of operations here at Blackpool Tower.
00:53Perfect, and so if you tell me what's going on today and what's...
00:58Yeah, so this is our annual event here at Blackpool Tower where we bring our 14 Edwardian
01:05chandeliers down from the very top of the Tower ballroom to the Tower ballroom floor.
01:09You can see one of the largest ones behind me here, we've got two of these large chandeliers
01:13and then we have 12 of our smaller chandeliers which are still nearly three feet tall
01:17around the side of the ballroom. The chandeliers in total have over 10,000
01:23individual pieces of crystal made in Italy on the chandeliers themselves.
01:28So, every year we bring these chandeliers down from the very top of the Tower ballroom,
01:32they have a spring clean so the crystal is cleaned and these bulbs are changed and then
01:36they're hoisted back up. One of the key differences is the chandelier behind me here
01:42is actually, it's not been done for at least 50 years, it could be even longer,
01:47but the central rope support which is the thing that hoists the chandelier up and down from us
01:53is being replaced which is the first time in 50 years so that's pretty special.
01:57To be able to do that we've had to have a specialist team come in and they've had to
02:00build the structure behind me to suspend the chandelier in place for the duration of the works
02:06so as it stands at the minute the chandelier is being held at this level by the structure
02:11and is currently not connected to the very top of the ballroom which is the first time,
02:15very long time it's happened. Can you tell me a little bit about,
02:18you were just talking a second ago about the origin of the chandeliers,
02:23where they were made and stuff like that? Yeah so the crystal was made in Italy,
02:28the frames were here but they've been here, well they're Edwardian so they've been here
02:33for a very long time. So the ballroom opened in 1894, these were added sort of around,
02:38well let's think 20 years later to these chandeliers you see now so that's why it's
02:43so important every year we do bring them down, we make sure that they're all well looked after
02:47and then taken back up to the very top of the ballroom. How long does this whole process take?
02:54So it takes around a week, so this process that we're doing today is completely new to us,
03:00so the people we've got here are specialists, they've done it elsewhere, you know you can
03:05imagine venues I don't know such as the Royal Albert Hall and so on but it's the first time
03:09we've done it here so we are taking our time. It will be open at the weekend but the works
03:13will take place around that so we expect by the weekend the two large chandeliers should be
03:19back up at the top of the ballroom. So you talked about you've got a team of specialists coming in,
03:24how would you actually clean the chandeliers without breaking anything? I know I wouldn't
03:31trust myself. So the crystal itself is like I say it's all hand cut from Italy so each piece
03:39so these lower sections here is taken off one by one so they're held together with the original
03:43pins and then we have like a wire that goes around that keeps it in place as a secondary.
03:48They'll all be taken off very delicately because they are very brittle and they will be hand
03:53cleaned literally with like a microfiber, like a micro cloth with a little tiny bit of a special
04:00detergent that's for doing this kind of activity that brings the shine right back into it so you
04:06don't need to do a lot it's purely what you can see here really it's a lot of dust it's a large
04:11room we operate all the way through the year and it's a once a year activity that we do
04:16and part of the reason it's once a year is to preserve the chandeliers for as long as possible
04:20yeah like I said the crystal does become very brittle but by doing it this way we make sure
04:24it's looked after for the long term. What kind of problems do the chandeliers face that
04:32won't need to be fixed during this period? To be honest they're actually all in pretty good
04:36condition for this year there's nothing actually we've spotted that's very significant
04:40what we're doing now because it's the first time we've done it here the person that's involved
04:45has been lowering these chandeliers every year for us since 1984 so he's been here for a long
04:51time right that isn't the challenge the challenge for us is working with the specialist team to
04:55change the ropes outside of that the chandeliers themselves because they are very brittle we have
05:01to be extremely careful that there are no breakages I've been here for 14 years and I
05:06don't think we've had no we haven't had any breakages to the crystal the most we've had is
05:11a second as needed repair so other than that it doesn't cause us any huge challenges because we
05:16really take our time and the team that involved really understand the importance of what it is
05:21they're doing
05:43well can you get them to hold it there?
05:51okay
06:51you