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To date, consideration of the carnivalesque at the seaside has focused on the practices and behaviour of tourists. Less attention has been paid to tourism employees who are not participants in the carnival but may nevertheless be affected by the 'playful crowd' that they work with. This study focuses on employees in a seaside amusement park. Employees regularly experienced 'misbehaviour' (such as abusive language, attempted theft and violence) by visitors reflecting the spirit of carnival. Employees responded by treating tourists with contempt and retaliated with tactics such as cheating, and reciprocal abuse and violence. The spirit of carnival rubbed off on employees in other ways such as using alcohol or drugs in the workplace, and participation in casual sexual encounters with both other staff and customers. In a variety of ways, employees inverted and transgressed the norms of the hospitality encounter in ways which reflected the influence of the carnival. Bandyopadhyay 1973;Walton 1978Walton , 2007Ward and Hardy 1986) the wider issue of tourism employment in England's seaside resorts is under-researched. In this paper we focus on the carnivalesque at the English seaside from the perspective of tourism employees with particular reference to a seaside amusement park (itself a particular locus of the carnivalesque). We consider the ways in which tourism workers respond to, and negotiate, the behaviour (and misbehaviour) of tourists who are enjoying a period of liberation and release from the strictures of everyday life. THE CARNIVALESQUE AT THE SEASIDEMikhail Bakhtin (1984) employed the term 'carnivalesque' to describe the unofficial popular festivities of the medieval period. The carnivalesque refers to a period of liberation, revelry and celebration when everyday rules and norms are relaxed or inverted. In this "world turned upside

h i g h l i g h t sConceptualises seaside resorts as mosaics of elements each with their own lifecycle. Focuses on the lifecycle of the amusement arcade sector within the resort mosaic. Examines the interaction of local, national and global influences on the arcade sector. Argues for a conceptualisation of resorts as assemblages. a b s t r a c tOne criticism of the tourism area lifecycle model is that it treats destinations as homogeneous entities. Instead destinations can be conceptualised as a mosaic of elements, each of which can follow a lifecycle that is different from that of the destination overall. This paper examines this issue with reference to amusement arcades in British seaside resorts and triangulates secondary sources and in-depth interviews to examine the historical evolution of this sector. It argues that the arcade sector has followed a lifecycle trajectory that is independent of the resorts in which they are located. A range of internal/ external factors and global, national and local influences have affected the lifecycle of the arcade sector, including global developments in the entertainment industries; the influence of state policies and legislation; and the responses of local entrepreneurs to resort restructuring. The paper ends by arguing that destinations can be conceptualised as 'assemblages' of interacting elements.

Amusement arcades have long been a key component of the British seaside resort. For almost a century they enjoyed popularity and success and became established as a quintessential feature of the British seaside holiday. However, the advent of home-based video games along with recent gambling legislation has led to a decline of the seaside amusement arcade sector. Arcades gained a reputation as unsavoury places and their appearance and fortunes often mirrored those of the resorts in which they were located. However, over the past decade a new variant of the seaside amusement arcade has appeared featuring mechanical machines working on pre-decimal currency. Such 'old penny arcades' frequently describe themselves as museums or heritage centres and they offer an experience based on a nostalgic affection for the 'traditional' seaside holiday. They have appeared in the context of an increasing interest in the heritage of the British seaside resort and constitute one element of the 'heritagisation' of such resorts. The paper argues that such arcades can be important elements of strategies to reposition and rebrand resorts for the heritage tourism market.