What should have been a special season for Dreamland Margate in 2020, its centennial year, was marred by the pandemic. Yet thanks to a successful ‘Save Dreamland’ campaign some years previously, the future of the coastal amusement park in Margate had already been secured.
Not that it’s all been plain sailing. Blooloop catches up with Dreamland boss Eddie Kemsley, who loves the park and the seaside resort it calls home so much that she’s managed it twice.
Dreamland and the Margate renaissance
“Dreamland and Margate get under your skin,” says Kemsley, who left as the park’s CEO in late 2016. After two years leading KidZania’s first UK outlet in London, she returned to her previous role at Dreamland in 2019.
Elsewhere in the county of Kent, she has also run The Hop Farm and been head of communications for the Aspinall Foundation (Port Lympne and Howletts animal parks). In her first stint at Dreamland, in 2015, Kemsley was responsible for relaunching what is one of the UK’s oldest amusement parks.
Dreamland’s renaissance mirrors the regeneration of Margate. Like the amusement park, the Kent coastal resort had seen better days at the turn of the century. Yet it now boasts a thriving arts and cultural scene. Margate is once again a popular day trip destination for visitors from London, less than two hours away.
Operated by Sands Heritage Ltd, the park’s owner is Margate Estates Ltd. The firm took over the 17.5-acre site from Thanet District Council in 2019. Thanks to theirs and the ongoing efforts of The Dreamland Heritage Trust, this entertainment destination by the sea seems safer – and more cherished – than it’s been in many years.
Festival vibes
Marketed as “the all-you-can-treat seaside entertainment sensation”, Dreamland Margate’s reimagination of the amusement park experience embraces both vintage revival and music festival culture. Art installations and photo opportunities dotted around the site are typical of those you might find at some pop-up events.
Festival goers and families alike enjoy Dreamland’s classic fairground rides and nostalgic attractions. Meanwhile, the retro splendour of the park’s Roller Disco is one of several popular event spaces. There is also an art deco ballroom and a large outdoor stage.
“Events have become arguably the biggest part of our business now,” says Kemsley. “What we’ve got is a permanent festival site really.”
Coming up over the next six months are performances as diverse as Tom Jones, N-Dubz, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Haçienda Classical. Signalling the start of the season on April 1 will be ‘Only Fools Day’. This is dedicated to the fondly remembered British sitcom Only Fools and Horses, which filmed a Christmas special in Margate back in the late 80s.
From last year’s Sam Mendes movie Empire of Light to an eponymous comedy drama starring Lily Allen (coming soon on Sky TV), the backdrop of Dreamland has featured in numerous other small and large screen productions.
A unique amusement park model for the UK
With their live music programmes and gastronomic offerings, Scandinavian city parks such as Tivoli in Copenhagen or Gröna Lund in Stockholm are probably the closest comparisons in Europe to the Dreamland experience.
The British park’s CEO acknowledges her debt. “I went to Tivoli around 2014/15, and just absolutely loved it. That blend of events, attractions, rides, food and drink just works. Most festivals around the UK have got all those elements. But they have to set them up on a greenfield site every time they run an event. Because we are plug and play, it works really well for artists and promoters.”
Furthermore, attending a concert in a vintage-themed amusement park is arguably a more interesting experience than going to a festival in a field.
“There’s an expectation now that you’ll get more than a white marquee and some Harris fencing, which is what you used to get at festivals,” says Kemsley, who is also a founder of the WXO (World Experience Organisation).
So would the Dreamland model work elsewhere in the UK? “Margate is a very cool town that’s had a resurgence the last five or 10 years,” says Kemsley. “I’m sure we’ll see more sites like this. But I’d like to think we’ve led the way and are pretty unique at the moment.”
Free admission and street food at Dreamland
When it’s not hosting concerts and events, admission to Dreamland Margate is free, and guests pay for rides using tokens. This is something Kemsley was keen to implement on her return to the park in 2019, following the gated model that operated for the previous four seasons.
“We’re now very much about the footfall,” she says. “We want people to come in and experience Dreamland. Whether that’s to have an ice cream, wander around looking at the art installations, or try a few rides after being on the beach all day. We didn’t want to lose any of those customers; having the gate just didn’t feel right.”
Improving the food and beverage (F&B) offer was another of Kemsley’s priorities. “As a free-to-enter attraction, we compete with all the amazing food in Margate, where you have restaurants opening all the time doing great things.”
The street food traders who now ply their trade at Dreamland are flexible enough to cater to both casual park guests and concertgoers.
“The units work really well for us in the evening, when we’ve got shows and 7,000 people arriving on site who all want to be fed in a couple of hours,” says Kemsley. “The traders can reduce menus and do fast service when we need them to. But then it’s a more relaxed environment in the day.”
The coaster that kept the Dream alive
Food, drink and music may feature more prominently than before. However, rides still have an important role to play at Dreamland. Yet when previous operator Jimmy Godden put the site up for sale in 2003, he’d almost given up on them.
A year earlier, after closing the Rotunda Amusement Park in nearby Folkestone, Godden told the Kent Messenger: “People don’t want to come to the seaside any more for rides”. The building from which the park took its name was swiftly demolished.
However, in Margate, one particular attraction proved to be an obstacle when it came to redeveloping the Dreamland site as anything other than an entertainment destination.
As old as the park, the Scenic Railway is the UK’s oldest roller coaster. Crucially, the ride was given Grade II listed status in 2002, preventing its destruction. That didn’t stop a fire from destroying part of the structure in 2008. It also consumed the workshop housing its original hand-carved trains. But it was nothing that grants from Heritage Lottery Fund and Sea Change couldn’t put right.
In October 2015, five months after the rest of the park was relaunched, the Scenic Railway reclaimed its status as Dreamland’s signature attraction. Unlike some wooden coasters, it’s a relatively mild ride, but a charming one at that. It is also one of the few surviving coasters with an onboard brake operator. An operator stands at the back of each dragon-headed train (two in total) to stop things from getting too wild.
Reliable rides Vs nostalgic attractions
Kemsley acknowledges that, when it comes to rides and attractions, the park is no longer in the bragging rights game.
“When Dreamland opened in 1920, it was one of the only amusement parks in the country. Now there are so many bigger, faster, whizzier rides out there. But I think Dreamland’s charm is its throwback heritage. Some of these beautiful old rides, set in this seaside location, you just don’t get at Thorpe Park, Chessington or other venues.”
When some more modern roller coasters and a few rides from Zamperla were introduced a few years ago, it signalled a shift away from a slavish devotion to the heritage amusement park model prescribed by the Save Dreamland campaign. Some of these have now been removed. A new ride for 2023 will be a family roller coaster called the Rock ’n’ Roller.
Kemsley says that it’s important to consider reliability as well as authenticity when it comes to new attractions.
“We used to have an old ride called the Speedway. It was lovely, but we had to shut it down for an hour each day after lunch. Trying to get audiences to understand that these are quirky rides that don’t work the same as the modern ones and need their little break, is quite tough. Even just sourcing parts or getting the right engineers to work on these old rides can be difficult.”
A tidal wave for Dreamland Margate
When Kemsley returned to Dreamland in 2019, it looked like the recipe of vintage rides and attractions, mixed with up-to-the-minute music, entertainment and a whiff of sea air, was beginning to work. Attendance that season was 700,000. But if she was riding a wave, it was one that soon came crashing down.
“We had all these amazing plans in place for our centenary,” says the park’s CEO. “It was going to be a great year, growing on what we had put in place in 2019. Of course, that rug got pulled [by the pandemic]. We were firefighting just working out how to navigate through something which was just so unpredictable.”
Most British amusement parks traded in summer 2020 with limited capacity due to coronavirus restrictions. Yet Dreamland remained closed for the entire season.
“The problem with a business like ours is that we are still predominantly seasonal,” says Kemsley. “There is the winter maintenance. We had to look at staffing, had to look at marketing campaigns etc. There is a significant investment to get to a level where we would be able to trade. And we did not really know how we could trade. How could we do social distancing, might we get shut down again?”
Even in 2021, “It felt very risky in January and February when we needed to think about what we were going to do [for the season ahead].”
Strategic dreams
Although Dreamland Margate did open during the second year of the pandemic, the Scenic Railway did not operate. Other rides were taken out of service and a few guest attractions were brought in to make up the numbers. Furthermore, the lead times required for ticket sales meant it took some time before a full events programme could be reinstated.
This was frustrating since, as other seaside operators experienced to their delight in both 2020 and 2021, the British public flocked to the coast after successive lockdowns.
Kemsley reflects on the opportunity afforded by these two difficult years. “It’s so rare that you get that chance as operators to really stop everything and think about what you’re doing, where you want to go strategically and how you’re going to get there.”
Some significant changes were made to the business. Both F&B and some of the ride operations are outsourced. (The Scenic Railway and Giant Wheel are still run in-house).
“At the time, it was more about risk, finance and managing resources,” says Kemsley. “ But we’ve maintained those relationships. It enables us to change up the product and have people who are really passionate about what they do and have real expertise in those areas.”
As a result of the reorganisation, Kemsley now heads up what she describes as, “A smaller but perfectly formed in-house team who deliver the core things for the business.”
Oh we do like to be beside the seaside at Dreamland
In line with the rest of the hospitality industry, staffing has become an issue for Dreamland Margate. “Historically, we would have a couple of recruitment days in March to get ready for Easter,” says Kemsley. “Now we are doing recruitment every month. Last year we were bussing people in from London to work the events because we just couldn’t get enough people locally.”
But the public appetite for Dreamland’s offer is there. Kemsley and her colleagues are now looking at ways to stretch out the season. Whether that’s Halloween or Christmas events, miniature golf, escape room or competitive socialising concepts.
We ‘wheely’ can’t wait until 1st April when we’ll be welcoming all you dreamers to our outdoor park 🎡 Keep your eyes peeled for some exciting new additions to our ride line up and amusements 👀 More announcements coming soon…. pic.twitter.com/KkWt4kzvDZ
— Dreamland Margate (@DreamlandMarg) February 18, 2023
Once again, she is riding a wave. Post-lockdown, leisure time has become more of a priority for some families. And in spite of the cost of living crisis, Kemsley says she does not foresee Margate’s popularity as a holiday destination waning any time soon.
“Demand for bed stock is huge. In its heyday of the 1960s and ‘70s, Margate was packed with B&Bs and hotels. But when cheap airfares started coming in and people began going abroad, a lot of those properties got turned into private dwellings.”
Yet new holiday accommodation is coming on stream. “There are, I think, four new hotels opening this year and some really nice boutique offerings that reflect Margate’s character. I think the staycation is definitely here to stay.”
So too, believes Kemsley, is Dreamland. “It’s just done 100 years. And I think it’ll do another 100 years.”
