| Teddy Rocks Festival is now less than a month away as it gears up to bring an amazing line-up of music and family entertainment to Dorset. This year’s 11th edition of the non-profit festival, is set to be its biggest fundraising year yet. Teddy Rocks Festival will continue to raise money for children’s cancer charities on May 3-5th, returning to Charisworth Farm, located in a stunning Dorset valley. Tickets are on sale now from Ticketek.co.uk. May Bank Holiday weekend sees the festival at its home at Charisworth Farm in Dorset for another fantastic year of great music, food, stalls, rides, raves, and sing a longs. Friday night will see the return of the Friday Pop Party after the wildly succesful dance party in 2023 with East 17 and The Vengaboys and sees Five, Atomic Kitten, Liberty X and DJ Sammy decend on Charisworth Farm for what will be a brilliant evening! Saturday and Sunday see the bill stacked with the best of the best in cover artists including Live/Wire (AC/DC), Oas-is (Oasis), Qe2 (Queen tribute), Guns 2 Roses (Guns ‘n Roses Tribute) and many more guaranteeing something for everyone across the festival site. We also see the cream of the crop of up and coming artists on the Vocalzone stage including Massive Wagons, Towers, Weatherstate, girlband and many more. Teddy Rocks Festival gives 100% of its profits directly to charities that support children with cancer and research. Set up by Tom Newton in 2011 after he lost his 10-year-old brother Ted to a rare bone cancer called Ewings Sarcoma. It has raised over £545,000 since its inception. Starting as a gig in a pub, the family friendly festival is now a 3-day outdoor camping festival, with seven stages, a funfair, shops and stalls, and a selection of gourmet food traders, and won Best Family Festival at the 2022 UK Festival Awards, the Community Impact Award at the UK Festival Awards 2023 and the coveted H award at the 2023 Heavy Music Awards. The quality line-up with over 150 acts extends throughout the weekend with some of the best emerging talent performing, alongside the nation’s best cover bands. Family activities are vast with arts & crafts, axe throwing, silent disco, rave dome, and more, giving the kids the ultimate festival experience. There’s also a variety of incredible street food to fuel the weekend. |
| ABOUT TEDDY ROCKS Teddy Rocks Festival started with a small gig in 2011 to raise money for Teddy20, a children’s cancer charity founded by Tom Newton and his family after he lost his 10 year old brother Ted to a very rare bone cancer. The gig was put on by Tom’s friends and family in the restaurant of The Greyhound pub in Blandford and raised £400. This was used to fund the very first Teddy Rocks event at The Corn Exchange in 2012, which raised £2,500. By 2013, Teddy Rocks had grown and needed more space, so they moved back to The Greyhound pub, raising £6,500 and £15,000 in 2014. In 2015, Teddy Rocks almost doubled this, raising an amazing £24,000. In 2016 the festival moved to a new site with a bigger capacity and the total raised was a staggering £42,800! In 2017 the festival moved again to a site large enough to facilitate car parking and camping alongside 4 stages and raised an immense £76,000. The festival has found its current home at Charisworth Farm in 2018 raised a record £83,000, taking our total since the start to over quarter of a million pounds raised. In 2019 we set ourselves the ambitious goal of raising £100,000 over the 3-day event. The Saturday was our first ever sell out with gates the box office closing just after 6.30pm. We smashed our target with £107,000 being raised for the charity and tickets went on sale during the event for 2020! The festival was one of the first festivals to take the decision to postpone due to the covid pandemic, in February 2020. This might seem insignificant now given the widespread lockdowns that were later enforced but at the time the extend of the virus was unknown and it was a big decision to make to protect our vulnerable festival goers. Despite the pandemic, brexit, and the moving of the May bank holiday in 2022, Teddy Rocks Festival survived and was back to raise another £60,000 for charity. 2022 saw acts such as Eagles of Death Metal, Newton Faulkner and The Fratellis headline. Past acts include The Darkness, Feeder, The Zutons, Don Broco, Twin Atlantic, The Skints, Modestep, Scouting for Girls, Ash, Toploader, Phil Cambell plus many more In 2023 the festival raised another £85,000 and saw a wild and varied line up including, Feeder, Jake Bugg, The Amazons, Vengaboys, Goldie Lookin Chain and East 17. So far, the festival has raised over £545,000 for charity and aims to donate over £100,000 again in 2024. All proceeds from Teddy Rocks Festival go to Teddy20 and other partner cancer charities including Young Lives vs Cancer, Bone Cancer Research and George’s Rockstars. Tom Newton, Teddy Rocks Festival says: “It has been an absolute rollercoaster taking this festival from the back room of a pub to where it is today. There have been some big lows and some unbelievable highs throughout. We have built an incredible team of volunteers who all share the same passion and vision to do good, so to be here launching our 10th teddy rocks is amazing! I’m really excited to see the event take on the next chapter and provide critical support for children and their families battling cancer.” You can also support the Teddy20 charity by selecting them as your Amazon Smile charity. |