Can we sing for you?

First Step

If you are interested, your first step is to contact our Secretary using the Contact Us page. Or alternatively, why not pop along to one of our Monday evening rehearsals to have a chat? See our Join Us page for more details on our rehearsal times.

We really want to help local organisations raise funds, but we also need to mindful that we cover our expenses. Our usual policy is that we will charge your organisation a fee of £125, which will go into the Choir’s funds to cover costs such as our insurance, purchase / hire of music, and rehearsal space.

On occasion we may suggest the inclusion of a special guest performer. There may be an additional fee to cover for this, but we would agree this with you in advance.

If our requested fee is a stretch for your organisation, please do discuss the situation with us. You can contact the Choir Secretary on confidence using the Contact Us page.

What you need to do next

Your organisation will be responsible for the staging of the concert, including locating and hiring the venue. The concert venue is responsible for adhering to PPL PRS rules for performing live music in public / at a business. You can find more information on this on the gov.uk page ‘Get a licence to play live or recorded music‘. We will need access to the venue on the day of the event to set up our staging.

You will also need to advertise your event and arrange how you want to sell your tickets and (if you wish) programmes. We do like to use our social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram) to publicise, and we’ll also add the event to our Events webpage, so we would happily include a copy of your poster if you are able to send us an electronic version.

You are able to set the ticket price. We usually find a mixture of on the door tickets with advance tickets available from a friendly retailer in Castle Cary works well, although you may also wish to consider one of the various web-based e-ticket services which are now available.

We often find that an interval refreshment goes does well, and many of our hosts provide refreshments (drinks and small nibbles) included in the cost of the ticket. However some larger venues may provide a bar service. You are responsible for checking on the licensing requirements if you plan to offer alcoholic refreshments.

We will take down our staging immediately after the concert, so if you are hiring a venue please allow time for us to remove the staging at the end of the evening (generally about 1 hour after the end of the concert).

Typical running order and times

We will provide you with a running order for the pieces in advance so you can prepare programmes. We select pieces from our repertoire to give a balanced mix of genres across the programme, but if you have a particular favourite then let us know and we will see what we can do. The normal outline of a concert is as follows:

First half:

• Generally we suggest doors open at 7.00pm for a 7.30pm start, although we can accommodate other times.
• Welcome and introduction from the hosting organisation and our Musical Director.
• Choir performs – typically around 15 minutes.
• Readings, guest artist/soloist or similar – 15 mins.
• Choir performs – typically around 15 minutes.

Interval: around 20 minutes

Second half:

• Similar format to the first half – total around 45 mins.