FESTIVAL goers in Box sang and danced in the rain on bank holiday Monday as hundreds attended Box Rocks all in aid of raising money for the Forever Friends Appeal.

The annual festival in the village has been bringing in sell-out crowds for over twenty years and on Monday, eight bands played for over eight hours to the delight of well-wishers at The Queens Head pub.

Organiser Dean Creighton said despite the downpours, he was pleased with the amount of people who made the trip to the much-loved event.

“The whole festival went very well considering the weather which put a lot of people off but despite this some people did come along to enjoy the day,” he added.

“It was a very good show and this year was probably the first year that I have enjoyed the entire show throughout the day instead of running around like a headless chicken sorting everything out. I managed to have the time to sit down and take it all in and all the bands went down really well.”

Since it began, the festival has been able to raise money for local causes and for the last 12 years, organisers have raised over £25,000 for the Forever Friends Appeal at the Royal United Hospital in Bath.

As a result of their fundraising success, they were recently presented with a senior community partner plaque which honoured their ongoing support to the charity.

Acts playing on the day included Blue Dog, Reloaded, Suzy Conrad and Sloes and to end the evening were The Corporations who made a return to festival to put on a performance of Saturday Night Fever.

Mr Creighton added: “The Corporations and their Saturday Night Live performance went down a storm and we transformed the car park into a disco and it was really nice to see people dancing and singing in the rain.

“Everyone I spoke to said what a great show it was and the bands said they event enjoyed played. They give their time for free to support the charity and I believe that musicians should get paid for their performances so we tried to give them the best show we could.

“A lot of ideas were floating around on the weekend for next year’s event so we are already starting to plan what we’re going to do.”

The total amount raised over the popular bank holiday weekend event was £2573.26 which will be added to the £25,000 already raised over the past decade.

Lydia McGivern, community fundraiser at the Forever Friends Appeal said: “As always, Box Rocks was an absolutely fantastic event, with lovely people and amazing bands all day long. We cannot thank the whole Box Rocks team enough for the huge amount of hard work they put in year after year to help raise funds for The Forever Friends Appeal. They have supported a number of areas across the RUH, and in doing so are helping to transform care for thousands of local patients and their families.”