The Teddy Rocks Story by the Newton family

Teddy Rocks Festival started with a small gig in 2011 to raise money for Teddy20, a children's cancer charity founded by Tom Newton and his family after he lost his 10 year old brother Ted to a very rare bone cancer.

The gig was put on by Tom's friends and family in the restaurant of The Greyhound pub in Blandford and raised £400. This was used to fund the very first Teddy Rocks event at The Corn Exchange in 2012, which raised £2,500.

By 2013, Teddy Rocks had grown and needed more space, so they moved back to The Greyhound pub, raising £6,500 and £15,000 in 2014. In 2015, Teddy Rocks almost doubled this, raising an amazing £24,000.

In 2016 the festival moved to a new site with a bigger capacity and the total raised was a staggering £42,800!

"It's amazing what we managed to achieve in just a few years, from raising £400 at a small gig to organising an awesome festival and raising over £250,000 so far. And it's all thanks to our generous and loyal supporters. Thanks to them, we've made a huge difference to hundreds of children's lives: because of their support, we're able to keep fighting children's cancer." - Tom Newton
Regional ITV Fundraiser Of The Year 2016
Wave 105 Cash For Kids Fundraiser Of The Year 2016

In 2017 the festival moved again to a site large enough to facilitate car parking and camping alongside 4 stages and raised an immense £76,000.

The festival has found it's home at Charisworth Farm in 2018 raised a record £83,000, taking our total since the start to over quarter of a million pounds raised.

In 2019 we set ourselves the ambitious goal of raising £100,000 over the 3 day event. The Saturday was our first ever sell out with gates the box office closing just after 6.30pm. We smashed our target with £107,000 being raised for the charity and tickets went on sale during the event for 2020!

The festival was one of the first festivals to take the decision to postpone due to the covid pandemic, in february 2020. This might seem insignificant now given the widespread lockdowns that were later enforced but at the time the extend of the virus was unknown and it was a big decision to make to protect our vulnerable festival goers.

Despite the pandemic, brexit, and the moving of the may bank holiday in 2022, Teddy Rocks Festival survived and was back to raise another £60,000 for charity.

All the profits from Teddy Rocks Festival go directly to our partner cancer charities.