TyneTees Twestival - Taking people offline to raise money for charity

On Monday 14th September I attended the TyneTees Twestival 2009, which was held at Hoults Yard, Newcastle.

The event revolved around a number of Twitter users from both Tyneside and Teeside raising money for two North East charities: NECCR and Teeside Hospice, meeting other Twitter users from the region and generally just hanging out and having a good time.

The event was the second event of this type held in the North East (The first one being held at The Other Rooms, earlier in the year, to raise money for Charity:Water).

I was helping out with the photography for this event along with Amanda McHale and Chris Davis and I throughly enjoyed the evening. I met a few new faces such as Amanda, Chris and Mandy Charlton, another fab photographer from Newcastle. but there were also a few "old" faces I knew from other events in the North East such as PJ, Britt, Ross Cooney and Cold Climate.

Tickets for the event were priced at £10, every penny went to the two charities and there was also a whole load of other things that got included in the price:

• Free entry to the raffle. Prizes included Xbox games, DVD players, professional services, holidays, FlipMinos
  
  
• Free Booze and Food throughout the evening
  
  
• FriiSpray
  
  
• "Guitar Hero" the way to a Thinking Digital ticket worth over £500
  
  
• Cup Cake Club with thanks to Laura Maddison from Altitude Recruitment
  
  
• Chance to meet other Twitter users in the region face to face.

A large number of sponsors chipped in to sponsor this event:

• Northen Film and Media
• Hoults Yard (Venue Sponsor)
• Better Brand Agency
• Codeworks
• Realwire (Formerly webitpr)
• Amanda McHale
• Altitude Recruitment
• Mandy Charlton
• EmailCloud.com
• OrangePanda Digital Media
• Sharpe Recruitment
• BoroTakeaways.com
• DTW
• ShareMyPlaylists.com
• Emma's Boutique
• R&B Group

Guitar Hero provided a lot of entertainment for the evening with people trying to Guitar Hero their way to the £500 Thinking Digital ticket. All of the cupcakes were purchased on the night adding to the amount of money raised and all of the Mystery Boxes boxes were won through the raffle (Including a box of Whispa Golds).

The event organisers did a brilliant job yet again, these included: Mark Easby, Declan Metcalfe, Aoife Ross and Li Ainley Walker, and they were right when they said it would be bigger and better than the Twestival event held earlier in the year.

Links
Photos of the event can be found here.

Tags
Tags for this event were: #twestival, #twestivallocal, #ttwes, #tynetwestival