Showtown in Blackpool has launched Showtown Backstage, a digital portal that lets people explore material from the town’s heritage collections online. The museum promoted the service in an October 30 announcement, and the Blackpool Gazette reported the launch on November 2.
The first online collections include highlights from the Charlie Cairoli Collection of Circus and Performance and Blackpool’s Illuminations collections. Visitors can search for a person, place or object, with further material due to be added as cataloguing and digitisation continue.
Examples described by the museum include a trick chair used in circus routines, unusual musical instruments, costumes and historical photographs. The portal is part of Showtown’s Unlocking Collections project, which is supported by National Lottery funding through Arts Council England.
Blackpool Heritage & Museum Trust cares for more than 100,000 items, but the launch does not mean all of them are already available online. The new service extends access beyond museum displays and the Showtown History Centre, where collection material can also be consulted in person.
Blackpool Tower and the seafront in August 2011. Illustrative archive photograph, not an image of the new digital portal or Showtown museum. Photo: Phil Sangwell, Blackpool Tower, CC BY 2.0.
