1. Distance wise the procession route is just over 1.7 miles long, and the carnival will take more than 2 hours to pass any one viewing point.
2. Over 1,000,000 individual lights (lamps and LEDs) will illuminate the skyline as the carts meander around the streets of Bridgwater.
3. Over 8 Megawatts of electricity will power the 45 carnival carts taking part in this year’s carnival procession.
4. Over 2,100 people are involved with the 101 entries in this year’s event.
5. 1,600 traffic cones, 200 road traffic signs, 170 barriers, and 34 traffic marshals will be facilitating the 31 closed roads. The equipment will be set out by the carnival committee’s road traffic team in readiness for the 2017 carnival, with the first being laid out at 06:30 hours on carnival day, and the last collected at 03:30 hours the following morning. 80 radios will be in operation during the event.
6. 340 collectors will be on the streets on carnival day and night collecting for 20 different charities. They are expected to collect over 500,000 coins.
7. This year Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival has 70 friends of carnival (formerly patrons). For more information visit www.bridgwatercarnival.org.uk/associates/friends.
8. All of the 2,448 grandstand seats were sold 5 weeks prior to the big day.
9. 53 trade stands will line the procession route on carnival night.
10. 195 people are expected to take part in this year’s squibbing display, 15 minutes after the procession has finished. The squibs are 300mm long by 200mm in circumference and hold approximately 1lb of gunpowder. 2017 marks 301 years since the first recorded evidence of squibbing in Bridgwater back in 1716.
11. 37 cups and trophies are awarded on carnival night by our 79 judges. Before the results are announced on the evening, 4,802 separate judging scores will need to be entered onto laptops to ascertain which entries came where.
12. 70 coaches / minibuses have already pre-booked to attend Bridgwater Carnival 2017.
13. 35 companies and organisations are official sponsors of Bridgwater Carnival 2017.
14. 6,545 people like the official Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival Facebook page.
15. 4,451 people follow Bridgwater Carnival’s official Twitter account.
16. In the last 12 months, our official website (www.bridgwatercarnival.org.uk), has received 195,533 hits, including 2,528 from computer users living in America, 425 from Spain, 366 from France, 343 from Germany, 343 from Australia, and 249 from Canada.
17. Various research projects and studies have concluded that Bridgwater Carnival is worth an estimated £4,000,000 annually to the local economy – £2,000,000 during the weekend of the carnival and a further £2,000,000 from carnival related activities throughout the year.
18. The FREE Bridgwater Carnival app, which is available from Google Play and the App Store, has been downloaded by 1,185 people.
19. 2017 is the 412th anniversary of The Gunpowder Plot.
20. This year over 1,500 local school children are taking part in educational activities organised by Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival Committee. Over 90 children are taking part in the children’s dance parade on carnival day, and 23 large masks have been decorated by 14 schools/nurseries which have been distributed to 23 retailers in and around the town centre.
21. In the last 6 years Bridgwater Carnival related activities have raised over £138,000 for the official Bridgwater Guy Fawkes Carnival charity and other local supported charities.
22. Wells based Globe Carnival Club’s 2017 entry White Magic has 64 moving parts and their 100 foot long entry has 34 wheels. The entry uses the same amount of electricity as 466 boiling kettles or 2,616 televisions. The music the club is using this year is O Fortuna sung by Luc Arbogast and lasts 180 seconds… it will be played approximately 350 times over the 7 Somerset County Guy Fawkes Carnivals. The cart will travel 116 miles around Somerset during the carnival season, and the club’s generator will use an estimated 1,100 litres of diesel.
23. Over 10 kilometres of electrical cable is on Bridgwater based Marketeers CC’s 2017 entry The Locker. Their cart is powered by a 125 kVA generator and has 6,000 LED chips, which equates to 300,000 individual lights, and can blend 24,000,000 different colours by varying the voltage to each red, green, blue and amber LED. 1 computer wirelessly controls all 3 units (towing vehicle, cart and generator), with 169 solid state relays switch/fading the lights to the music. Each LED chip requires its own individual heatsink pad. This is made from an aluminium profiled extrusion with special features to disperse the heat generated from the chip. So far the club has invested in over 600 metres of this extruded profile and has accounted for in excess of 500 hours in labour to produce the 6,000 individual heatsinks.
24. Members from the Bridgwater based Marina Sydenham Juvenile CC made 300 icicles, 600 bricks and 500 cobblestones for their entry this year, Jack!
25. For Coleford based Huckyduck CC’s 2017 entry The Flying Dutchman, approximately 25,000 barnacles have been hand made by members and their families and carefully stuck to the ship and costumes together with many shells and seaweed.
26. 2017 sees a number of carnival clubs are celebrating special anniversaries for the number of years they have taken part in Bridgwater Carnival:
80 years – Cavaliers CC
70 years – Vagabonds CC
50 years – Griffens CC
40 years – Huckyduck CC
30 years – Cary Comedians CC and Shambles CC
20 years – Nunsford Nutters CC and Gemini CC.
Congratulations to all.
27. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, over 30,000 people in 119 countries across the world were able to see last year’s procession live, whilst relaxing in the comfort of their own homes. We are hoping these figures will increase for the live streaming of Bridgwater Carnival 2017 (https://www.bridgwatercarnival.org.uk/streaming/).
