The town’s locals were led to believe The Tropicana was being used as a film set for a Hollywood crime thriller by Grey Fox Productions, who is in fact Banksy’s production company, as a cover-up to keep the locals clueless of this mystical wonderland. The art exhibition is open every day from 22nd August to 27th September 2015 from 11am-11pm and are hoping to attract up to 2000 visitors a day. The tickets are available in the hut opposite the park for £3 each entry also bookings are available online on the official Dismaland website.
It is the first opening day for Weston's residents and people have been waiting for hours early in the morning, some even camped the night out ready to be one of the 1000 people to get a free ticket that have been given away to the locals via the Mercury, As I join the first visitors of Banksy’s – “Bemusement Park” I am grateful to see what lies behind a miserably Gothic sign on an abandoned lido in my home town.
After a long wait in the queue for the park to open at 11am the opening begins and everyone is loving it whilst they enter the "security". Everything looks different at first, then you notice its all made out of cardboard cut-outs, created by Californian artist Bill Barminski. It consists of cardboard X-Ray machines, tables & objects supposedly taken from visitors. The “security” asked visitors if we carried anything unusual such as unicorn horns and Bug spray adding to the humor of modern security systems nowadays.
Entering the park it feels as if this place shut down ten years ago, it has a great 'dismal' atmosphere with the low key theme tune playing repeatedly and miserable workers that looked like they really didn't want to be there. It is really something completely opposite to any Disney land theme park as instead of seeing smiles everywhere and a place to go to escape from reality, its a park "that embraces brutality and low level criminality instead of your average sugar-coated fantasy land".
Some of the fairground stands i pass are something different alright, win big prizes on 'hook-a-duck' covered in grease, shooting gallery playing to win fake jewelry and navigate the high seas with Banksy's Mediterranean boat ride. Among these amusements is a circus tent, a Cinderella castle, a giant pin wheel, and a lot more hiding around each corner. The exhibition holds 10 of Banksy's new artwork and 50 from other artists all around the country.
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As i walk around i see some really controversial artwork by Banksy himself such as a painting of a mother and child about to be overwhelmed by a tsunami, a killer whale jumping out of a toilet expressing whale mistreatment in sea worlds and a mouse being consumed by a snake. What really gets me about his work is it relates to the harsh reality, the women being attack by seagulls shows that you can't even sit down and enjoy a portion of chips without being attacked by a flock of birds!
I think its incredible that Banksy has brought this much publicity to the town, he said " It's with great pleasure we throw the doors open of the Tropicana once again, I've dreamed of installing a theme park on this site ever since i walked past the building six months ago". Not only he shares memories with The Tropicana as a young child he thought that the town and area could relate to the theme, the concept of it being on a beautiful beach with sand, but its pissing it down all the time adds great character to Dismaland - Life isn't always a fairy tale.
