The Extonbury festival team have announced that they raised approximately £4,000 for the Air Ambulance and British Heart Foundation at their annual festival this weekend.

On 1 July 2023, the sleepy village of Exton welcomed hundreds of festival goers who rocked out from 11:30am until 11:30pm all in the name of charity, enjoying music from Rutland and Stamford bands who are passionate about the local community.

Exton's The Fox and Hounds welcomes hundreds of visitors to the annual Extonbury day fesitval in adi of charity. Image credit: Nub News.

Following a preliminary count up, the team have announced that they have raised around £4,000 for their chosen charities, the Air Ambulance and the British Heart Foundation.

While the Air Ambulance is one of the charities that they have supported since the inception of the event in 2009, they have opted to support the British Heart Foundation following the passing of a local musician and regular performer and attendee of the event, Paul Caffrey.

Five Day Weekend headlined Extonbury, with a collection of Punk-Pop covers and crowd pleasers. Image credit: Nub News.

Extonbury Music Festival started out as a small private celebration of local artists, first becoming a public event in 2009. Now heading for their 14th year, it has become a popular charity music event for the people of Exton and Rutland, showcasing talent from across the region.

RAW The Band performed at Extonbury this year, adding to a busy summer of gigs for the local music collective. Image credit: RAW The Collective.

A spokesperson for the event said: "We've always been proud to support the Air Ambulance - it's unfathomable that such a vital emergency service, particularly in rural areas like ours is funded totally by the public and receives no government support at all. Since our first festival in 2009 we've raised a total of £28,000 for this superb service, including last year's record of £6,560.

"We're sharing our achievements this year with the Heart Foundation in memory of our dear friend and long time supporter Paul Caffrey who sadly suffered a fatal heart attack. Heart problems can afflict any of us and the work the Foundation does across the whole spectrum of issues is essential in continuously improving our capabilities in preserving life.

Extonbury welcomes live local bands from across the county at the annual fundraising day festival. Image credit: Nub News.

While the team did not surpass this record, they shared on social media how proud they are of this year's impressive total, particularly considering the overcast skies and chilly winds that hung around throughout the day on Saturday.

They posted on their Facebook page: "So the preliminary announcement is that we raised about £4,000 yesterday for the charities. It's all subject to final verification after we've paid all the bills but that's the ball park. Considering the weather was a bit against us, that's a pretty good total! Thanks to everybody who came, all the superb bands, the stalls, the set up and clear up team, the raffle genie (you know who you are Nicole), the pub, the sound team and everybody else who contributed. What a day."

Dirty Rumour, who perofm across Rutland and the surrounding areas, played at the event and were popular with the crowd. Image credit: Nub News.

Congratulations to the Extonbury team and the bands from Rutland and Stamford who contributed to the ever-popular event. Bring on Extonbury 2024!