The final 10 hours felt very long, but maybe that was because I had been awake for about 27 hours by that point. There were 3 groups throughout the day playing for 3 hours at a time in the Church. I was a very warm day, the sun was shinning and the beach across the street was very busy. We kept the doors open and invited in any passers by that wanted to hear the orchestra, some of whom very generously donated money and bought some CD’s and other bits of merchandise from our stall.
The Orchestra has a very big catalogue of music in our repertoire, yet many of the players all seem to have the same favourites, so each group that came on played some of the same tunes as the previous group. Luckily the people coming and going barely noticed. However for myself and one or two others who had been there all night and all day, came to find the repetition of certain tunes slightly tiresome. But that might just be the lack of sleep talking.
The final hour saw all the players reunited for a free concert, even with the lack of sleep the players give it there all and sounded great. The end was bittersweet, the day was such fun and very exciting but we were all glad to head some for some well deserved rest.
I would like to say a huge thanks to all the Tour adults, who put in a lot of time and effort to make this happen. To all the players for making the play in entertaining and raising a lot of money – total to come soon. And Lastly to our Musical Director David Moore, for organising and executing the entire 24 hour play in. Despite being over tired for the final concert he still managed to make the audience laugh, although that may have been because he was a bit delirious form exhaustion.
There are lots of photos and videos from the 24 hours on our Facebook page, and there is still more to come, so head over there for more content.
-Hannah
Loved all the Christmas tunes