User:H0tW0odfest21MD/sandbox

The Beginning - 2021
Starting in 2021, Post Covid 19, Dylan Lewis and Molly-Beth Lancelotte came up with an idea to cheer up the local village of Coedpoeth, Wrexham, North Wales. As well as give a great day to the community, they also strived to give back to 2 charities.

Due to the mental strain on people during the lockdown that occurred we chose for one of our charities to be MIND UK.

Festival - 2021 - In the beginning
The Venue for the First HotWoodFest was in the Golden Lion in Coedpoeth. With a greater interest than originally planned, in planning, the 1 day event very quickly became a 2 day festival. This was mainly due to the amount of acts wanting to contribute to a local event and support local charity's.

The event sold extremely quick with tickets (Wristbands) being sold at the local pub in question.

HotWoodFest - 2022 - Take 2

As soon at our first event ended, it was a discussion to be had....'What next'....this conversation took less than a minute. 'Lets Plan for 2022'.

This was a turning point for the little venture. We came to a decision that as we 1. Loved planning and hosting these events, 2. It went so well in year 1.

Moving forward and wanting to grow we had to make a hard decision of this time not giving all monies to charity. This did not go down well with some people with us having to explain the the first year we were out of pocket as we had to make start up purchases of over £7k + costs for things such as travel costs, decorations + the time that went into organizing.

So year 2 we decided that we would give all Raffle and Auction monies to charity, and a percentage of ticket sales. We also have to keep in mind that although we did not have the start up costs this year, we still had bands and acts to pay. Unlike the year prior, with not all monies not going to charity there was no free acts, and with understanding the events industry was more than happy with.

Also this year we hired the help of 3 more staff. With attempting in year 1 to set up and program lighting, set up and control sound both FOH and on stage monitors while still acting as co-host and stage manager this was way to much. So in 2022 we took on the help of a Lighting Designer / Programmer and 2 Sound Technicians (Who also provided hire of some tech items).