Blackpool England is home to the world’s largest ballroom dance competition. It’s mentioned in several big movies – Shall We Dance? (Japanese and American versions), Dance With Me. Often when you lookup Blackpool in a travel guide for England the first sentence is usually “Blackpool is the Las Vegas of Europe.” Hardly. If you take away the hookers, the strippers, the neon lights, the huge extravagant hotels and many other things, then maybe you have Blackpool.
The competition happens right downtown at The Winter Gardens at the end of May.
A typical day starts with competition that starts in the afternoon and lasts until midnight or 1am. For the most part, it’s just one or two competitions per day. (There were 300 couples in the Pro Latin competition this year.)
Pretty standard ballroom dance competition rules. In latin a couple dances 5 dances (Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble and Jive). In standard a couple dances 4 dances (Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango, and Quickstep). Couples who have danced the previous year and have gotten past the first few rounds are exempt from dancing the first round this year. Each round the panel of judges choose roughly half of the couples to go on to the next round.
The final round is roughly 6 couples, semi-final 12 couples, quarter final 24 couples. When it gets the final, then the judges order the couples.
The Empress Ballroom is huge. It’s much longer than it is wide, and much longer than any of the competition floors in America.
Blackpool is northwest of Manchester 1.5hrs by train. It’s easy to fly into Manchester and hop on a train to Blackpool.
Blackpool is kind of a resort down although it’s no Las Vegas. It is a popular destination for hen and stag parties and there are blocks and blocks of bed and breakfasts…
And there are 3 piers which have various amusements, arcades, casinos, and rides…
And to the south, past the last pier along the promenade are a bunch of cool sculptures, including maybe the world’s largest disco ball? (It’s like 20ft across.)
But the real reason to come to Blackpool is the dancing…
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