It is hard to believe that it has been almost a year since Bristol’s Twitter community came together in just five weeks to organise a fantastic party and raised over £1,500 for charity: water. If you missed it or fancy reminiscing about what was a wonderful evening, watch this short film:

We were one of 185 cities around the world which took part. Twelve months on we’re doing it all again and who knows how many locations will get involved?!

The theme of this year’s Twestival, which takes place on Thursday 25 March, is education and after an online vote Concern Worldwide was chosen as the 2010 charitable cause.

Founded in 1968, Concern is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organization dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of poverty. Their mission is to help people living in extreme poverty achieve major improvements in their lives - improvements they can sustain without ongoing support. Concern meets the needs of these people in a caring and personalized manner, respecting their human and cultural dignity. They are committed to reaching the most vulnerable, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Concern’s work is informed by a vision for change and their education programs target the poorest people in the poorest countries in the world, with particular emphasis on reaching out-of-school children such as girls, orphans, street children, working children, children affected by conflict, children affected by HIV and AIDS, and children with disabilities. Concern’s education programs currently reach over 700,000 people in 25 countries across the regions of Africa,  Asia, and the Caribbean.

100% of the money raised in Bristol - and at all Twestivals around the world - will go to Concern Worldwide. The funds will be used for material purchases (curriculum, desks, pencils) as well as project activities such as construction of schools; rehabilitation of classrooms; teacher/management training; PTAs; HIV/AIDS school clubs; water and sanitation in schools; health education in schools; education advocacy; vocational/life-skills training for youth, farmers and women; and curriculum development for secondary school/university. Money will not be used for things like administration, overhead and reporting oversight.

We hope you’ll agree that it is a fantastic cause.

So how can you help? Well, at this point we need everything! Whether you can provide sponsorship, a venue, a raffle prize, food and drink, entertainment, help with press coverage or anything else which contributes to creating a brilliant party we want to hear from you!

To get involved we firstly encourage you to register as an volunteer on the Twestival website. When you’ve done that tweet at us on Twitter or post on our Facebook event page and let us know what you can offer. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Two months have now passed since the world celebrated Twestival; events in 185 cities to raise money for charity: water. And what a day it was!

In Bristol, almost 200 of you joined us at The Lanes, one of the city’s newest and most exciting venues, for an evening of dancing, eating drinking, CoolBoard balancing (only those who came will know what that is!) and, most importantly, money raising. In total, we collected £1,510 which is a massive achievement given that we started organising the event less than five weeks before it took place!

If you haven’t yet seen it, here’s the official Bristol Twestival film:

Very often when you give money to charity it’s unclear where your money goes. Not with Twestival.

We kept emphasising that 100% of everything you donated goes to the organisation’s water projects and indeed it has but just in case you didn’t believe us or, more importantly, want to see what a difference your money has made, lead Twestival organiser Amanda Rose and members of the charity: water team this week visited Ethiopia to witness the unveiling of the first Twestival funded well and recorded a series of videos.

You should consider yourself proud because the money you gave us on 12 February - every single penny of it - has paid for the new well unveiled this week and the others which will be constructed over the coming months.

Your money has started to make a huge difference to the lives of thousands of people; people who spend up to four hours a day carrying heavy canisters of dirty water for many miles. To prove the point, watch this video of the charity: water team - healthy, 30-something men - struggling to deal with canisters of water children as young as 11 carry each and every day. 

The next two videos show the unveiling of the first Twestival well. Clean water is something we take for granted in the developed world. We switch on the tap and it’s there. It never enters our mind that one day it might not flow or we’ll have to trek for miles to collect water which is so dirty it could kill us. The footage below is what 12 February 2009 was all about:

From everyone who made the Bristol Twestival happen; thankyou.

Well, what can I say. The Bristol Twestival was a truly fabulous night. Around 200 people showed up and Bristol, you certainly know how to party if the state of The Lanes at 1.30am is anything to go by!

The entire organising team was overwhelmed by how many people joined us and dug deep into their pockets for charity: water. Our fundraising target was £1,000 but we’re delighted to announce that we smashed it! In total, you raised £1,482.10. Bristol, you should be very proud of yourself!

Checking out the Twitter stream it’s clear that fun was had by all. We’re glad to have provided the opportunity for the Bristol Twitter community to put faces to tweets and I’m sure lots of you have made useful contacts.

If you missed the party or you’d like to relive it all again, you have many options!

Two of the highlights of the night were the fantastic performances by our bands Mango Factory and headline act Fortune Drive who you can check out in the video below:

Sam Downie of Bristol Sounds kindly streamed the entire event live online and a good few hundred people tuned it to watch. Sam has kindly archived the videos and you can view them in three parts here, here and here.

There are also tons of photos appearing on the web. If you took any, please do tag them ’bristwestival’ so we can all view them. Here are the latest Bristol Twestival images on Flickr. 

You may spotted Verity, one of the members of the organising team, on hand with her trusty video camera last night. She has some great footage and we’ll be turning it into a short film which will make for great viewing.

Marc Cooper from the Bristol Evening Post also showed up last night and he has today published this piece featuring a video interview with Dan Martin, another Bristol Twestival organiser.

That’s all for now but there’s plenty more to come. Afterall, we have to start planning for Bristol Twestival 2010! 

The date

Thursday 12 February

The time

7pm to 1am

The Place

The Lanes, 22 Nelson Street, Bristol, BS1 2LE

Tickets

Tickets to the event cost £5 with 100% going to charity: water. We will be selling tickets on the door between 7pm and 8pm but to avoid having to queue (and maybe miss out on a goodie bag!) we urge you to buy tickets in advance here. 

The running order

7pm - 8pm: DJ Twang
8pm - 8.30pm: Raffle part one 
8.30pm - 9.15pm: Mango Factory
9.30pm - 9.45pm: Raffle part two featuring Kerry McCarthy MP
9.45pm - 10.30pm: Fortune Drive
10.45pm onwards: Leisure Allstars

The sponsors

Sift
Bristol Bowling

The partners

BusinessZone.co.uk
10 Yetis
Bristol Design Festival
Bristol Sounds

Drinks

The first 100 people to arrive will receive a voucher which can be exchanged for a free drink at the bar. £2 specials on selected drinks will be available all night.

Food

A selection of free food will be available at the start of the evening. After that, food will be available to purchased from The Lanes’ full menu with a 50% discount off the normal price.

The raffle

Tickets to our raffle cost £1 each and 100% goes to charity: water. The following prizes are up for grabs:

• Aardman book, poster and DVD signed by Peter Lord, David Sproxton and Nick Park donated by Aardman Animations
• House of Commons whisky signed by Gordon Brown donated by Kerry McCarthy MP
• A week’s stay for up to 8 people in a French villa, donated by LaFrenchPlace.com
• Four scuba diving lessions donated by Simple Web Management and Subaquaholics
• Trunki children’s suitcase, as featured on Dragons’ Den, donated by Trunki
• Beaming Baby gift pack of skincare products for children plus a Imse Vims organic cotton blanket donated by DaisychainBaby.co.uk
• Ticket to FOWA (Future of Web Apps) Dublin, a Carsonified journal and t-shirt donated by Carsonified
• Personalised newspaper front page donated by Making The News
• 50cm x 50cm canvas of a photograph chosen by the winner donated by Purple Dogfish
• Half-day Ideas for Success session donated by Jack Marthleith
• Two hours editorial photography with up to 30 images donated by Michael McKelvaney
• A Droplet vinyl toy donated by Jam Factory
• Two child-sized organic Fair Trade calico carrier bags donated by Mimimyne
• A full day’s public relations strategy planning session donated by 10 Yetis
• A copy of AntiVirus with AntiSpyware donated by Webroot
• A full day’s business consultancy donated by jbsh LLP
• 5 £20 restaurant vouchers and 5 sets of Invitation products (voucher book, platinum card and Cabot Circus card) donated by EatOut.co.uk and Invitation
• Gift box of Lush soap products donated by Lush
• Adult CoolBoard donated by CoolBoard
• Photoshoot plus 7”x5” print donated by EPIC Photography
• Ticket to Crossing The Avoid donated by South West Screen
• Weight Training Technique System system donated by Alex Poole

The goodie bags

Goodies bags will be available to the first 150 people to arrive. The contents have been donated by:

Whalebags
Sift
Firebox
MOO
Bellevue Tea
Jelly Belly
eOffice

Live streaming

The Bristol Twestival will be streamed live on the internet by Sam Downie of Bristol Sounds.

The wait is over! Here are the timings for events at the Bristol Twestival on Thursday.

7pm - 8pm: DJ Twang

8pm - 8.30pm: Raffle part one 

8.30pm - 9.15pm: Mango Factory

9.30pm - 9.45pm: Raffle part two featuring Kerry McCarthy MP

9.45pm - 10.30pm: Fortune Drive

10.45pm onwards: Leisure Allstars

Timings are approximate but we will try as far as possible to stick to the above.

We hope you all have a fantastic evening. Over 110 tickets have now been sold and remember, we only have 150 goodies bags to give away. If you haven’t done so already, get your ticket now!

Proving that you should always watch the credits, those of you who didn’t switch off once @Wossy had finished doing his thing at tonight’s British Academy awards will have noticed two victories for Bristol.

Esther May Campbell, a director based in the city, took the Short Film prize for her excellent movie September. We’d highly recommend catching it if you get the chance.

The other award? Well, that win should help convince those of you who are still deciding whether or not to come to the Bristol Twestival to join us on Thursday evening.

Taking the Short Animation gong was Aardman Animations for A Matter of Loaf and Death, the latest adventure from Wallace and Gromit. 

What’s that got to do with the Twestival I hear you ask? Because you can win Aardman goodies that’s why! But they’re not just any Aardman goodies. No, they are signed Aardman goodies.

Nick Park, who picked up the BAFTA tonight, Aardman co-founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton and Richard ‘Golly’ Goleszowski, director of Wallace and Gromit spin-off Shaun the Sheep have signed the poster, book and DVDs we’ll be giving away! And better still, Peter Lord has also drawn a picture of Morph. Now come on, who wouldn’t want to win those?!

If those prizes don’t convince you to part with a fiver and join us at Bristol Twestival, nothing will. See you on Thursday!

OK, not quite but it got you reading didn’t it?!

We’ve been overwhelmed by the response to our call for raffle prizes. So far we have 17 goodies to give away and they’re all fabulous! Several are money can’t buy prizes and that’s certainly the case with one of our latest donations.

Kerry McCarthy, MP for Bristol East, is one of only a handful of British politicians using Twitter to connect with the public and from early on she has been a supporter of our event. This week we popped down to visit Kerry in Westminster and were delighted when she told us she was donating a bottle of House of Commons whisky signed by prime minister Gordon Brown! Pretty good prize eh?!

To win it and all the other fantastic other including Aardman Animations goodies signed by Oscar winning Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park and a week’s stay in a French villa, you have to be at the Bristol Twestival on 12 February!

All 17 of the raffle prizes including details of the generous souls who have donated them are listed on our ticket site where for just £5 you can secure your chance to win. The cost of the ticket also includes some food, a couple of drinks and a goodie bag.

We look forward to finding Gordon’s whisky a good home!

We’ve always known that the Bristol Twestival is going to be a great party but that now definitely can’t be disputed following the confirmation of our first act!

Mango Factory are well established on the city’s music scene and we’re delighted they have agreed to play on 12 February. The formidable nine-piece band will certainly ensure Bristol’s contribution to the worldwide Twitter-fest will be a night to remember. Playing a unique blend of original music and covers, you’ll be immersed in a melting pot of funky, jazzy and latiny madness!

Come along on the night and you won’t be disappointed. The band’s locked tight rhythms, dynamic arrangements and multi-instrumental fireworks are set to light up the The Lanes and, better still, the band’s performance is included in the ridiculously low ticket price of just a fiver!

To find out what’s in store, check out Mango Factory’s MySpace and Facebook pages and watch this video of the band in action.

To see Mango Factory live, get your tickets now for the Bristol Twestival. Remember, 100% of all the money we raise goes direct to charity: water.

Venue

We are absolutely delighted with our venue. The big Bristol party on 12 February will take place at The Lanes, a brand new independent bar, diner and, best of all, bowling alley near Broadmead. We’ve secured exclusive access to the space between 7pm and 1am and yes, that includes the five fabulous bowling lanes so you’ll all be able to don those oh so attractive shoes!

Tickets

Tickets for the Bristol Twestival are now on sale for only £5 each. 100% of your money goes direct to charity: water. They are available via a page on event ticketing website Amiando which has kindly waived all fees for each city Twestival. To get your ticket to the Bristol Twestival, click here.

Charity

All city Twestivals are raising money for the same cause; charity: water.

Right now 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe drinking water. That’s one in six of us. Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease and kill more people every year than all forms of violence including war.

Many communities in developing nations often have a plentiful supply of clean drinking water just below the ground, but no way to get to it.

This is where charity: water and its partner organisations come in. Drilling a well can cost from $4,000 - $12,000 but many living on less than $1 a day cannot afford one in their community, even if the money is combined.

100% of the money raised by all city Twestivals including Bristol will go direct to charity: water.

Raffle

The centrepiece of our evening will be an amazing raffle with all proceeds going to charity: water. We’ve been inundated with prizes and we express our sincere thanks to everyone who has donated. Here’s what we have so far:

• A copy of Cracking Animation and a poster signed by company founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton and Nick Park, the Oscar winning creator of Wallace and Gromit donated by Aardman Animations.
• Trunki children’s suitcase, as featured on Dragons’ Den, donated by @Trunki.
• Beaming Baby gift pack of skincare products for children plus a Imse Vimse organic cotton blanket donated by @DaisychainBaby.
• Personalised newspaper front page donated by @makingthenews.
• 50cm x 50cm canvas of a photograph chosen by the winner donated by @RachaelWyatt.
• Half-day Ideas for Success session donated by @jackmartinleith.
• A Droplet vinyl toy donated by @JamFactory.
• Two child-sized organic Fair Trade calico carrier bags donated by @MimiMyne.
• A full day’s public relations strategy planning session donated by @10Yetis.
• 10 copies of AntiVirus with AntiSpyware donated by Webroot.
• A full day’s business consultancy donated by @johnbradford.

Sponsor

The Bristol Twestival could not happen without the kind generosity of our lead sponsor Sift, a company established in the city 1996.

Through its three divisions - Sift, PracticeWEB and Sift Media - the company leads the way in creating and maintaining community-driven websites, a perfect sponsor for an event inspired by Twitter.

Media partner

Our official media partner is BusinessZone.co.uk which provides free, practical and no-nonsense guidance to small business entrepreneurs. Combined with its sister website UK Business Forums, BusinessZone.co.uk represents one of biggest online communities of entrepreneurs in the UK. You can follow BusinessZone.co.uk on Twitter here.

Goody bags

We are currently gathering lots of fantastic treats for the official Bristol Twestival goody bags. They will be available to the first 150 people to come to the party and the cost is included in the price of your ticket.

And it’s not just the stuff in the bag you’ll want to arrive early for; even the bags themselves are worth having! They are made of 100% cotton so can be used time and time again. Kindly donated by Bristol-based Whale Bags, they fit perfectly perfectly with the ethos of the Twestival.

Food and drink

We are currently in discussions with several companies over providing a selection of food and drinks on the night. This will be included in the price of your ticket. We will be making an announcement very soon.

Music

Several music acts will be performing on the night and the cost will be included in your ticket. We intend on showcasing some of Bristol’s newest musical talent. More will be revealed soon.

We’re still looking for support so if you can help in any way either tweet at @bristwestival or email bristwestival@googlemail.com.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I’m delighted to announce that we have a venue!

And what a venue it is. We’ve secured, for one night only, exclusive use of The Lanes, a brand new independent bar, diner, and wait for it……..bowling alley in central Bristol! Now come on, we must be the only city in the world holding our Twestival in a bowling alley!

We’ve got use of the venue from 7pm until 1am so there will be none of that heading home at 11pm - let’s show the world Bristolians really know how to party and raise a shedload of cash for a fantastic cause at the same time!

Now that the space is confirmed we’re able to start selling tickets, registration for which will go live on Thursday. Tickets will cost just £5 and 100% of your money will go straight to charity: water. Online event ticketing company Amiando have kindly waived all fees which means more money can go to slashing the shocking statistic that one billion people - that’s one in six of the global population - have no access to clean and safe drinking water.

Given our venue, as well as our fabulous charity raffle, good drinks, yummy food and crazy games, you’ll also be able to put on those oh so attractive shoes and get down to a few games of bowling. There will also be a few surprises on the night so watch this space!