ONE million bulbs of every colour flickered into life in a dress rehearsal for Friday night's spectacular Blackpool Illuminations switch-on.

Chart-topping boy band Blue will join Atomic Kitten, Liberty X, Louise Redknapp and former Bee Gee Robin Gibb at the night's big event, which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 2.

The six miles of Illuminations, linked by 200 miles of wiring, will light up Blackpool's promenade for the next 66 days, and organisers are hoping to attract around 3.5 million visitors.

Artists, electricians, painters and engineers have spent months working on the show, which will feature a host of spectacular displays.

They include The Haunted Hotel, a seven-metre high, 25-metre wide display featuring ghostly live-action video, projecting fiendish faces onto the window panes.

Other hi-tech advances include the Sony EyeToy, which will allow players to control a video game projected onto a huge screen in which they are the star.

The show has cost around £2.5m to put together, and organisers are hoping generous visitors will add to the lights fund by giving cash at donation points along the route.

Illumination manager Richard Ryan said that this year's lights will be the best ever.

"We have a very talented team and this year they have come up with something extra special," he said. "People who come will be absolutely gobsmacked. The lights just get better each year -- but this time they are brilliant.

"The lights are a beacon that bring people from across the country. Our season is only just beginning."

Mr Ryan said the team were encouraging people not just to drive along the route this year but to enjoy the sea air with a walk along the promenade to make the most of the huge displays.

Blackpool Mayoress Cllr Lily Henderson said: "Quite honestly, they are marvellous. There is nothing like this anywhere else in the world."

The Illuminations' history stretches back to 1879, when Blackpool became the first to boast electric street lighting with eight arc lamps which bathed Victorian holidaymakers in "artificial sunlight".