Well, that's The Rock & Roll Circus Events Charity Xmas Bash over for another year. To say putting on this years event was a challenge would be an understatement!. Having booked the band's back in 2019, originally to play at 2020's event, (which for obvious reason's didn't go ahead as planned), it took until the Friday to finally know if the event would still go ahead or not due to events being cancelled left, right and centre because of Covid.
With the uncertainty of events not going ahead, this year's ticket sales were down on previous year's. I'm not one for cancelling events due to low ticket sales, as I feel that doesn't help with people feeling confident in buying tickets for future events.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the bands that travelled from all over the UK yesterday to entertain us, Ryders Creed, Lords Of Ruin, Pearler, Straight For The Sun, The Philo Beddoe Band, TREP, Six Sins Till Sunday and Kikamora.
Luckily enough, we didn't have snow this year, which meant none of the band's had to pull out due to bad weather conditions. All eight of the band's were on top form yesterday, with band's and fans all having a great day.
I'd like to say a special thank you to the legend Chris Badaxe Heath for keeping everything running smoothly between bands. Without him I couldn't have done it all on my own.
Thanks to The Dolls House team on the weekend, especially Blain on the sound desk. He did a cracking job with the sound yesterday. It wasn't an easy job organising eight bands on and off the stage.
Thanks to Andy at Very Metal Art for his continued support. Thanks also to Llanmoor Homes, Drum Depot, Marshall Amplification, Jägermeister and FyreSky.
A special thanks goes out to Christiane, for getting Russ and the lads from Uriah Heep to sign a drum skin when they were in the studio a couple of months back while recording their next album, and for going out of her way to deliver it to Abertillery from Essex in person yesterday.
Another special thank you goes out to David from the legendary band Kill 66 for giving me a hand to load in the backline yesterday.
Most of all I would like to thank everyone that bought tickets & travelled from all over the UK to Abertillery to support our Annual Charity Event and for digging deep into their pockets to buy raffle tickets.
This year, we were raising funds for the Stepping Stones Appeal at Velindre Cancer Centre Cardiff, and I'm pleased to say that we still managed to raise £500.00 to go to the charity even though we had lower numbers through the door this year.
"Will there be another Xmas Bash in 2022?" I will have to have a serious think about that in the New Year.
I would like to thank you all for your continued support for The Rock & Roll Circus Events. We hope you have a great Christmas break and we will see you in 2022 for more "Original" Live Music.
Ceri Davies
Presenter and Co-Director