Unfortunately Skegness Carnival 2007 was yet another symbol of a bunch of older East Lindsey District/Skegness Town councilors people who have no real idea of what a carnival should be. We missed Skegness Carnival 2008, but Skegness Carnival 2009 (see comments below) was no better.
Just throw the word carnival around freely just to get the crowds in to Skegness. Let’s make it clear, this is NOT a carnival. What it actually is, is a bunch of tractors and cars with adverts attached to them advertising local Skegness businesses.
The only thing that was any good and was in keeping with a carnival theme was the Chinese dragons, we loved those guys. If it wasn’t for them I think I would have gladly let myself get trampled by the crowd.
There’s nothing spectacular that would take your breath away, no excitement or fun for the kids, no great music to get you in the mood. Just old dreary vehicles and a bunch of people in the carnival who never smile and look like there in the process of having their toe nails removed (click the image above and try to spot a smiling face, it would be easier to find Waldo!).
Skegness Carnival for Businesses NOT for Holiday Makers
This entire event just seems to be publicity for Skegness businesses, So with regret my suggestion is to stay away from this disappointing non-event, it’s cheap and nasty like most of what Skegness organizes.
It’s a waste of two hours of your life you’ll never get back. I would even say its worse than watching a bad film, at least when you watch a bad movie your sat down. During the Skegness carnival your stood up for 2 hours squashed, sweaty, pushed and jostled, with people smoking in your face, the smell of 50 different fragrances of cheap perfume, babies crying and mothers yelling at them, all for NOTHING.
What Skegness Carnival Should Be
Just in case any one from the Skegness carnival committee ever reads this, let me tell you what a carnival is, then if you ever eventually get a clue you’ll know how to improve Skegness carnival.
Firstly great music, modern, body rocking music, NOT every brass and marching band you can find to churn out some old dreary (there’s that word again) 18th century crap!.
Bright colourful costumes, that takes effort to make. NOT some rubbish hired from a costume shop that only 7 people in the entire carnival went to the trouble to hire.
Street Entertainers: where are they?
Street merchants selling things like helium balloons, jewellery, trinkets, whistles and noise makers, maybe even a Skegness carnival market: But there aren’t any of this either.
Gifts of plastic necklaces, fake flower wraths, plastic rings, sweets and small trinkets passed out to the crowd. NOT 2 boiled sweets to share between 3 children, some colourless paper flags and a key chain that my kids got. To say that the paper flags where to promote road safety to children, they weren’t very attention grabbing or fun. The best thing they got was from the fire service which was the key chain, but all it had on it was a boring fire engine that ended up in the bin.
It’s for the kids people. Make it fun, so those on holiday actually WANT to return to Skegness!!
Seriously how difficult is that.
This is a parade at best and not a very good one at that.
Skegness Carnival 2007 Verdict
My verdict on the Skegness carnival: 0-5 stars.
The Skegness carnival committee puts zero effort into this event, so they get zero stars.
Extremely disappointing.
Don’t attend or come to Skegness for the carnival it’s a very embarrassing Joke!!!. It’s out of date old fashioned “family fun” that only your gran might enjoy: we spoke to elderly neighbors who think it’s rubbish and don’t watch it, they have lived in Skegness on the carnival route for over 20 years!
Skegness Carnival 2007 = Total snooze fest
If anyone else has any other ideas to suggest to the Skegness carnival committee on what a carnival really is feel free to comment below.
Maybe one of the old fuddy duddies will have Internet access and stumble upon this review and take note.
BTW we live right outside the carnival route and since 2007 (our first Skegness Carnival) we no longer bother even looking out the window. If we want to see a procession of cars and other vehicles we’ll wait until rush hour and look then ;)
Well since this review was posted (was in the works for months) two days before Skegness Carnival 2009 (August 9th 2009) we decided to brave going outside during this Skegness event. That was an hour or two ago.
Skegness Carnival 2009 was meant to have the theme “Years Gone By”, not sure what that means since we didn’t stumble upon a description of what that meant to the carnival organisers. Still you would assume it was something to do with the past.
The Skegness Carnival was pretty much the same as 2007 except it lacked the handful of brave individuals who went to the trouble of wearing Super Hero costumes (2007 carnival theme).
We didn’t watch the entire procession of car/adverts, because like in 2007 it was very disappointing.
The most exciting part was when a fight broke out, we caught the end of a fight between two men trying to bash each others heads in before the police broke it up. Reasonably confident that wasn’t part of Skegness Carnival, but you never know :)
The cheerleaders dressed in pink really need to work on their choreography, practice, practice, practice ladies.
What’s also quite amusing is the Skegness Silver Band which has probably been part of Skegness for decades is never present at the Skegness Carnival. We have a very good idea why, our eldest son who is musically gifted (though not that interested in music!) was a member of the Skegness Silver Band, he’s very good at the bells (complete natural) and the electronic keyboard, but not very good with wind instruments, so they gave him a cornet to play which he never got particularly good at (sounds awful to be honest).
Unfortunately despite being in Skegness for so long the Skegness Silver Band sounds terrible and only plays old music (perfect music for the fuddy duddies who organise the Skegness Carnival, IF they could play well that is).
So looks like the carnival organisers won’t hire the Skegness Silver Band because they sucks (sorry, but they do).
That being said the band that did play at 2009 Skegness Carnival wasn’t much better!
Unfortunately another disappointing Skegness Carnival!
David
I am 14 years of age and I play for the Skegness Silver Band and I am interested as to why you think the band is so terrible, are you a musician? If not I do not think that you should be saying anything.
Also if your son is not a brass player why did he join a silver band doesn’t sound very clever and gifted to me.
If you have a problem why do you not get onto the council and organise the Skegness Carnival your self.
That’s an interesting view point to have Josh, if you aren’t a musician you can’t have an opinion on a band! The times I’ve listened to the Skegness Silver Band I’ve not been impressed, I’m not going to lie and say they sound great when I don’t think they do.
I asked him many times the same question, he tried to setup something more to his taste with the Skegness Youth Club, but it kept falling through (no one interested unfortunately). So it was the Skegness Silver Band playing a cornet or nothing regarding music with others in Skegness: he enjoyed playing music with others, but that didn’t make him good with a wind instrument (you must have played with our son, did you think he was good with a cornet?). Hopefully he’ll find something more suitable at University.
I wish I could, but unfortunately I’m 7 months out from a major operation on my back (op might not have worked) and even sitting in a chair for 30 minutes is an achievement right now! If my back ever improved significantly I’d love to get into politics, really winds me up how poorly some things are organised.
From what I understand the biggest problem with the Skegness Silver Band is a lack of serious interest from young people. So Josh have a word with the organisers of the Skegness Silver Band and ask them if they’d like a page on this site to try to attract some more kids to join? (drop a comment here if they want a page). I’ve been thinking about creating a “What’s on in Skegness” section to the site with details of things people (residents and visitors) can do in Skeggy, so not a review of things we’ve done as a family, but what’s available in Skegness.
Thanks for the comment Josh, good to hear from young people in Skegness, I think the town doesn’t provide enough activities for young people to do.
David
I Know Josh and he is the most ledgendary trumpet player and pianist. if he is not a musician i do not no what is
I think you’ve misunderstood the conversation, Josh was suggesting non-musicians (like myself) shouldn’t comment on musical ability. Whilst I as someone who enjoys music believes I can comment on musical ability.
Don’t personally know Josh, don’t think I’ve heard him play, so have no personal opinion about his musical ability beyond what I read in the Skegness Standard that suggests he’s musically talented.
David
Are you the same 14 year old Josh Wilkinson that’s a member of the Alford Silver Band and is mentioned in the Skegness Standard last month regarding passing his Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music exams (grade 8 on the trumpet)?
Congratulations if it is you.
Does this mean you are in both bands or have you just left the Alford Silver Band to join the Skegness Silver Band recently?
David
Hello david yes i am josh from alford,i am sorry about your back i hope you are ok.
I play with alford and skegness and many other different bands and i can agree that maybe skegness is not as good as some other bands but i think they have improved immensely from when they were taken over by Steve Walker who has done an amazing job. i think that the band are improving all the time and for the sort of gigs they do at the minute i think they are at a good standard.
I am not sure if i new your son or not because i have only been going to skegness for about 6 months, i realise now why he would have gone however, as i am not a resident in skegness i do not really know what else there is musically in skegness. i suppose it may not have helped in the band with the fact they did not have much tuition as far as i am aware.
Also thank you for the offer of advertising on the website i will ask to see if they want to, i am sure they will.
Josh Wilinson
Hey again Josh,
I hope you are right about the Skegness Silver Band improving, do you know if they will be playing over the Christmas period, (lights turning on event?) if so might catch them and would be great if it changes my opinion and I can write something positive about them.
Our eldest son music wise has fell on his feet at Uni, the “dorm” he is in all three he shares with play musical instruments, two plays the guitar and the other the drums and with him on the keyboard they almost have a band! They are looking at finding someone to sing with them. Not bad for a bunch of computer geeks studying computer sciences :-)
David
Hello All
I agree with what has been said about skeg carnival it has been very disappointing. But 2010 will be different because we will be doing more then a little something at the 2010 carnival in skegness. We plan to have the most superhero’s ever seen at a carnival, from the Hulk to Spiderman at not just cheap costumes some that cost £600+ they real do look amazing. Also we will be doing Dath Vader and stormtroopers again these will be our £700 costumes that we hire out to people all over the UK. We are new to skegness and have just opened a retail shop on lincoln road. We are importers of the best costumes an masks from all over the world. One of the most amazing things we are trying to do is have the original batmobile that adam west used in the old batman series along with one of our collectors batman costumes. Along with all the above there will be teletubbies scooby doo, flintstones, hellboy, batgirl, queen of hearts, and about 20 other tv and film costumes. We are hoping for some help from skegness councilors to make this as big as possible. We will also need people to wear some of our costumes. We can also do some of the above like hand out flags sweets and plenty of music to get the crowd going. This should be a lot of fun for all people the ones taking part but mainly for the people watching. Any help any one can offer would be great to make skegness standout for a change. If you would like to see the costumes that we will be wearing on the day you can view them at hope to see some response and these are not empty promises we will be doing all we can this 2010 carnival. Regards Manager Elaine Bridge Signature Costumes Skegness.
Dear Mr Law.
I realise the Skegness Carnival is not to your liking, however before you critise the workers try finding out the facts. The Carnival is NOTHING to do with either the Skegness Town Council nor East Lindsey District Council. When you have done your research you can contact me at the above address.
Hi Graham,
Thanks for pointing out the mistake, you are correct regarding no involvement from either ELDC or Skegness Town Council. I’ve made appropriate changes to my wife’s review above.
I see you are the press officer for the Skegness Carnival Committee. Does this mean you get no funding from either East Lindsey or Skegness Town Council and if not, why the hell not??
If they give you no funding I can now understand why you struggle to put on what my wife calls “a real carnival”.
Considering how much money Skegness makes for every pound spent on publicity it’s madness not to support a Skegness event quite a lot of people attend!
I take it with the recession you’ll have even less money for Skegness Carnival 2010?
Thanks again for pointing out the error above.
David
Hi Graham Dovey,
I am shocked that a Skegness event like the Skegness Carnival that draws in the tourists is not supported by East Lindsey District Council!
One would assume that a major event in Skegness, one of only two regular events Skegness runs during the holiday season, would be run by the council since the Carnival is used to promote Skegness, Please accept my apologies for my assumptions.
I’m afraid I still stand by what I said about the actual Carnival, It’s not a carnival in the modern sense and is out of date, but at least now I know why. The lack of support and funds from a Council that is happy to take the money and profile for Skegness, generated by the Skegness Carnival, but is unwilling to give real help and commitment to it.
Says a lot about our council! :-(
Marie
Once again I find most of the comments from the from the owners of this forum both over critical, hurtfull to the organisers and volunteers of both the carnival committee and The skegness Silver Prize Band. the one possitive part of reading the review was the part from the young man called Josh.
All the committee are volunteers who put in hours of work to raise funds to put on a carnival each year and without there efforts we wouldn’t have a carnival at all. Its not the committee that should be criticised its the businesses and organisations who don’t bother to enter origional floats of a high standard, I know how difficult it is because I organised a float from the South view caravan park a few years back and it meant that i had to give over to the project most of my weekend liesure time. I would a aggree that a lot can be done to improve the carnival but your comments just seem to be set on destroying it. I excepted that your incapacity has restricted you David from taking a more active role in the Carnival committee but what about your wife who seems also to have a lot of say on the comments in this forum.
Been there, done that, never again!, from first hand experience working for a community marching band I can assure you it’s not as simple as volunteering and change will happen, it’s a naive concept. From my personal experience once an organisation has been established it is difficult to get them to embrace new ideas.
Regarding the Skegness Carnival committee, if they wanted new volunteers they would advertise and ask for help, since they do not it is safe to assume they think the carnival is fine the way it is and do not want it to change. If they felt there was a problem with the carnival they would already be actively seeking to improve the Skegness carnival.
In this day and age it is not hard to find out about other carnivals in England for inspiration, just use Google and YouTube. I found the Brighton Carnival from a simple search on Google. The Brighton Carnival is a real carnival which embraces the community and art in many forms.
The carnival community would need to embrace a new structure and find a natural born leader with fresh ideas to improve Skegness Carnival and be open to change including new leadership, it goes a little further than a few new volunteers, the main problem with well established organisations is that they find it hard to try something new, they always say they don’t have a problem with it, but my personal experience is that they do.
I know a lot of people are not going to like my Skegness Carnival review, but I say it how I see it and I’m not the only one. Visitors we’ve spoken to have expressed the same feelings, even my elderly neighbours think “it’s rubbish” (their words not mine). I will say that if I had known that the Skegness Carnival was run by volunteers I wouldn’t have been as harsh in tone in my review, but the message would have been the same. I am more than willing to write a favourable review about the Skegness Carnival if it improves.
May I ask WHO you think is looking after my hubby while he’s recovering from his operation, to snidely suggest that I’ve got all the time in the world for volunteering is absurd!
I have been there, done that and got the T-shirt, I know what I’m talking about, you can’t pull the old “why don’t you do something then?” on me. As a side note my youngest son volunteered his time to the Skegness Silver Band (he’s not a member, but his brother was) and drew them a new logo to commemorate there 100th anniversary which they put on key rings and sold to the public to raise funds for the band (it sold extremely well, maybe you have one?). He didn’t even get a commendation not a simple personal thank you, to a little boy who spent hours designing and producing it.
Enough said about volunteering ones time.
Marie