Roll up for a night of carnival fun in Weston-super-Mare

Huge crowds will descend on Weston-super-Mare on Monday as the annual Somerset winter carnival procession season comes to a close.

More than 100 entries will weave their way through the streets after visits to Bridgwater, North Petherton, Burnham-on-Sea, Shepton Mallet, Wells and Glastonbury.

The carnivals in Somerset date back 400 years and are one of the most spectacular events in the region.

Weston's procession will take a slightly different route this year due to work being carried out on the seafront.

Floats will leave Locking Road car park at 7.15pm and continue to the Odeon and down Regent Street towards the seafront. They will travel left along Beach Road, down Clevedon Road and Walliscote Road, before heading back to Station Road.

There will be no parking anywhere on the route from 4pm and road closures will be in place from 6pm (Beach Road from 4pm).

Among the main competitors this year are a handful of Weston entries hoping to impress the judges.

They are Unlucky Carnival Club with Making Money For You, the Shooting Stars Cheerleaders with It's Raining Again, Barnardo's, Move it Shakers Dance Troupe and individual walker Richard Palmer with Broom's Nightmare.

The favourite floats going into Weston are Gremlins CC with Joust in the Best Open Features category and Gemini CC with To The Trees for Best Tableaux category. Both clubs won at Bridgwater, North Petherton, Burnham and Shepton Mallet.

Gremlins CC is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, so winning overall would be a double celebration.

The club's entry took about 12 months to make and features around 20,000 lights.

Phil Brockbank, Gremlins CC chairman said: "We are hoping to win overall after four consecutive wins.

"People seem to like the float. We get a great reaction from the crowd."

The club is up against main rivals Masqueraders CC, Griffens CC and Marketeers CC.

Masqueraders CC's entry Burlesque Cabaret was created in three months and also features around 20,000 light bulbs plus LEDs.

Griffens CC entry Roll Up, Roll Up, took nine months to build as the club had a shortage of people working on it. This year's entry for Marketeers CC, Scarecrows, was downscaled after the club had to pay for a new base. Chairman Steve Wright said: "We were told we would have to pay huge sums of rent for our base so we had to move and put our resources into a new site.

"It cost us £60,000 to build a new shed for the float and that would normally be spent on the float itself."

In the Best Tableaux category, the main competitors are Huckyduck CC, Shambles CC and Pentathlon CC.

The Pentathlon CC entry is Ceremonial Barge of the Dragon Emperor, Wills CC's entry is called Venezia and Shambles CC's float is Boardstiff.

Huckyduck CC entry Alice's Dream took the club nine months to make and features 7,000 light bulbs and 23 club members on board.

For details on access, contact the North Somerset Council events team on 01934 427249.

Programmes will be available from Weston-super-Mare Tourist Information Centre.