Tourists can have name in lights

The illuminations run for 66 nights until 6 November

Visitors to the Blackpool illuminations can have their own name up in lights.

Illuminations bosses will be using an interactive text system to enable visitors' names to be splashed across a giant screen.

It is the first time in the 126-year history of the famous illuminations visitors can pay to have their name included as part of the lights display.

The cost will be £1.50 per message, with the money raised going towards the cost of putting on the lights.

New technology

Visitors can text their name to lights organisers, who will then use a laser to write the message on a 100ft (30m) by 20ft (6m) screen at Bispham.

The service is available at weekends and during the half-term holiday later this month.

Illuminations managers said the new technology meant visitors could now interact with the lights display rather than merely look at it.

The lights, which were switched on at the start of September, are stretching beyond the promenade for the first time with a "festival of light".

This year's illuminations mark the 125th anniversary of the invention of the light bulb by Thomas Edison.