The original ballroom, the Tower Pavilion, opened in August 1894. It was smaller than the present ballroom, and occupied the front of the tower complex. The Tower Ballroom was built between 1897 and 1898 to the designs of Frank Matcham, who also designed Blackpool Grand Theatre, and it opened in 1899. It was commissioned by the Tower company in response to the opening of the Empress Ballroom in the Winter Gardens. The ballroom floor is and is made up of 30,602 blocks of mahogany, oak and walnut. Above the stage is the inscription ""Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear"", from the poem "Venus and Adonis" by William Shakespeare. Each crystal chandelier in the ballroom can be lowered to the floor to be cleaned which takes over a week.