United Kingdom –
For two years British photographer Photography Feature – Anna Fox documented holiday culture at the iconic Butlin’s resort in the seaside town of Bognor Regis, West Sussex. This new book ‘Resort 2’, published by Schilt Publishing, is the second part of the Resort project. Resort 1, published in October 2013, looked at “Family Breaks” at this iconic holiday camp, providing a unique insight into contemporary British leisure culture. Resort 2 observes a very different kind of holiday, the themed adult breaks, taking place about once every six weeks inside this very British holiday camp. Butlin’s famed for its family holidays since its creation in the mid- 1930s, needed to rework its branding from the 1970s onwards. Cheap package holidays abroad started to draw families away from these popular resorts and several of the camps closed down.
Having attracted tens-of-millions of holidaymakers since its creation in 1936, the popularity of Butlin’s was at stake and after rebranding of the “Family Breaks” came a new invention – the “Adult only Themed Weekends”. Steeped in a carnival atmosphere these raucous weekends bring out a range of fantastic creatures from groups of imitation pop icons such as Amy Winehouse and Elvis, to gangs of male fairies. With various titles such as “Back to the 60’s” or “90’s Re-loaded” and the marvellous “Hot Summer Party”, these weekends attract thousands of work-worn adults ready to try out exotic fancy dress and party hard for two days and three nights.
