Blackpool – Showtown, the British seaside town’s first museum, will celebrate its history and future in delivering joy and whimsy to visitors.
Set to open in 2021, the museum will celebrate the comedians, dancers, circuses and characters that have brought Blackpool to life throughout its history. The project aims to be a hybrid museum space and visitor attraction – a fully immersive, family-friendly experience featuring artefacts and visitor experiences. Among the exhibitions planned for the museum are Beside the Seaside, which will explore Britons’ love for the beach, and Everybody Dance Now, a celebration of the town as the spiritual home of ballroom dancing.
To build intrigue around Showtown, Manchester-based studio True North has created playful, flexible branding for the museum that draws on beach-inspired motifs such as ice creams. In a similar vein, museum spaces are also being uplifted to transform novel experiences into platforms for people and brands to engage in discussions about the future. We explore this in our Post-modern Museums microtrend.