Christmas By The Sea Blackpool: Strictly Come Dancing stars Lauren Oakley and Graziano Di Prima to open the village

Two of the BBC show’s professional dancers will officially launch this year’s seafront village on Friday November 17 – the eve of the much-anticipated return of Strictly Come Dancing to the world-famous Tower Ballroom.

Lauren Oakley and Graziano Di Prima will open the skating rink accompanied by talented youngsters from two Blackpool-based performance centres.

This year’s village includes a range of new festive family attractions - plus extended opening hours for the free skating rink, which will open every day until January 1 (barring Christmas Day).

The official opening will take place at around 5.30pm on the Tower Festival Headland, which has been transformed into a winter wonderland.

The opening event will be hosted by radio presenter, Hayley Kay, and will feature a festive performance from the students from Scream Theatre Schools followed by a skating performance with children from the Blackpool Ice Drome Charities Association (BIDCA) and young skater Amelia Kislitsyn performing a special routine before the rink is opened to the public by Lauren and Giovanni.

With the free-to-use skating rink as its centrepiece, the village includes festive light installations and projection shows, themed log cabins, artificial snowfalls, Christmas trees and tram rides.

The village will also see themed children’s attractions including a new 100ft-long snow slide and the return of the Star Flyer, which, at 196ft tall, is one of Europe’s tallest swing rides.

Last year, Christmas By The Sea, which is staged on the headland opposite The Blackpool Tower, delivered the highest visitor numbers ever recorded on the seafront during the winter months.

The staging of the village is in association with the Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID), Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Triangle Attractions.

The village will be complemented by a full Illuminations display along the seafront after VisitBlackpool announced earlier this year that the Illuminations would once again be extended by two months to run from September 1 through to January 1. The annual display includes nightly projection shows on the front of The Blackpool Tower, sponsored by Northern Rail.

For full details, including opening times of the rink and other attractions go to: visitblackpool.com