Soul Comes Home to the Tower Ballroom

The popular night brings together DJs from the Blackpool Mecca’s Highland Room as well as the Wigan Casino.

Richard Searling who was a long-time resident at the Wigan Casino, hosted the massively successful Soul Festival at the Winter Gardens back in July.

The sheer popularity of that event was something that took Richard aback, he said: “I was very pleasantly surprised because I was very concerned for a long time that it wasn’t capturing the public’s imagination.

“It was a very ‘put your money where your mouth is’ type project for myself, in conjunction with the Winter Gardens and their support was essential because we saw very professionally run event.

“People got into the building and just loved it straight away. We got 2,300 there, the artists didn’t let me down, they were brilliant.

“It was really quite emotional when an artist like Gerri Granger, who made a record in 1971 that sank without trace, couldn’t believe that anybody would know it let alone have thousands of people dance to it.”

The Northern Soul Reunion carries on a busy few months for Richard. Talking about the event, he added: “It’s something we started in the last couple of years and basically, it’s a northern soul oldies session with the biggest records that were ever played at Wigan Casino and Colin Curtis, who was an original Blackpool Mecca DJ, joins us as well.

“There’s four or five DJs, plus Ginger Taylor and it’s a good night, 9pm til 2am.”

As well as Wigan Casino and Blackpool Mecca, the DJs will also be spinning all the “biggest winners” from two other legendary soul venues - Mr M’s and the Twisted Wheel.

In November, the Blackpool Tower will also play host to its tenth annual Soul Weekender. Richard describes Blackpool as the ‘UK’s number one soul city’ and says that using Blackpool Tower to host these events is a no-brainer: “The Blackpool Tower is a very special venue for us and for northern soul lovers, the dancefloor is everything. They love the atmosphere but most of all they love that dancefloor.”

For tickets visit www.theblackpooltower.com/