Inflatable Slide for Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway

ITV is an integrated producer broadcaster, creating and distributing many high-quality, world-famous television programmes on multiple global platforms. Since its origins in 1955, ITV plc has evolved considerably and now owns fifteen franchises which broadcast free-to-air commercial content across the UK. The creatives at ITV studios have produced over 8,400 hours of original programming distributed to a multitude of countries including UK, USA, Australia, France and Germany. Classic shows are far too numerous to mention and cover all genres, both scripted and non-scripted.

As a successful global company, ITV’s vision is to continually build upon its ‘unique and winning combination of creativity and commercial strength’. Their channels reach 90% of the UK population every week targeting all key demographics.

Many of ITV’s most popular and successful productions from the last twenty years have featured the winning combination of Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly as co-presenters. Shows such as ‘I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!’ and ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ featuring the Geordie duo are always high in the ratings, partly down to their upbeat chemistry and winning personalities.

In 2002, Ant and Dec developed their own original idea for a show entitled ‘Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway’. Episodes are broadcast live at the weekend in a popular primetime slot. Each episode has a selection of light-hearted segments including games, comedy films and live performances from contemporary artistes. As well as being a favourite with the general public, the programme is also highly rated by critics. In fact, the series has gone on to win six National Television Awards for Most Popular Entertainment Programme as well as plaudits for the two presenters.

Having become an instant hit, there have been sixteen series of Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and over one hundred fun-filled episodes. Its popularity has remained high over the years and the return for series seventeen is eagerly awaited by the viewers, particularly in light of the coronavirus restrictions. Television has never been more needed to raise the nation’s spirits and this is just the programme to do it. It was therefore imperative that the tried and tested format remained for its loyal audience members whilst ensuring it is fresh for a new generation of fans.

With this is mind, the team at Glow Inflatables were asked by ITV to create a custom-designed inflatable slide for use on Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway set in ITV’s studios in London. This entertaining new concept involved the slide being used by Ant and Dec at the beginning of each episode instead of the usual steps. This surprising and bold new idea would ensure an even more exciting and grand entrance for the audience to enjoy.

Here at Glow, we had to carefully consider the design, the angle of the steps and the velocity at which they would slide to ensure maximum effect and total safety.

The transition from the steps to the slide needed to be seamless and we also had to ensure that the sides of the slide were low enough to give a good visual of the pair from all angles but also safe enough that the famously excitable pair couldn’t fall off! The slide needed to be be both fun and safe as well as quick and easy to install in an add break of just four minutes. Such are the tight demands of live television but Glow Inflatables more than welcomed this exciting challenge.

We worked in collaboration with the ITV creatives and our designer to create a 3D colour visual of the slide in accordance with the dimensions provided by the customer. We even mocked up the 3D design onto a render of the set so the customer could visualise as closely as possible how the slide would look. We carefully worked out the angle of the slide and to compensate for a flat area which may have impeded their descent we added a raised section in the bed of the slide to ensure they would continue sliding naturally.

To ensure that there were no unforeseen issues with the deployment of the inflatable slide, Glow also fully installed it on the set and demonstrated the quickest way to inflate and attach it to the steps in a safe and coordinated way.

The result was an incredibly vibrant and exciting entrance for Ant and Dec that immediately surprised and delighted the audience at home. Bursting through a huge, dazzling wall that featured their online audience, the pair enthusiastically whizzed into the studio down the bright pink slide, courtesy of Glow Inflatables.

For the millions of viewers who have had their lives severely restricted over the last few months, it is the role of our popular entertainers to bring the fun and pizzazz directly into our living rooms. With the help of the team at Glow Inflatables, Ant and Dec can be sliding into the Saturday night TV schedules for the rest of this season!