How staff member Poppy put on fundraising gig for Autism Together

In total Poppy raised over £600, which was fantastic. Some of the people we support helped create a brilliant banner to celebrate the amount raised.

We caught up with Poppy to find out a little more about how she put this fundraiser together.

“It just popped into my head, because obviously I always go out gigging and I thought, oh, that would be really, really good. I wonder if I could pull it off?

“And it was good. I’ve never done it before. I was really worried and panicky because I was thinking, oh, what if nobody comes or it just ends up a big mess. But it was really good. I really, really enjoyed it.”

Poppy revealed that she’s been performing in bands for around 8 years now, taking on everything from country to hard rock. Having found herself playing in an acoustic duo, post-Covid era, she decided it was time to switch to being part of a full band.

Poppy became singer in the band Seeing Red, performing a range of classic rock tunes, from the likes of Nirvana, Billy Idol, Alanis Morisette and more. While enjoying playing regularly with the band and gigging alongside a range of other groups across Merseyside, Poppy was inspired to create a charity gig of her own.

“I’ve got really good relationships with all the venues and I’ve built really good relationships with all the other bands as well. That’s why I thought, oh, I could do this. Obviously it’s a charity event, so I have no money to pay anybody, so I just sort of fluttered my eyelashes at a load of people, and said ‘can you come and do this?’”

Poppy settled on popular Birkenhead rock venue Molly’s Chambers as the location for her fundraiser, as she regularly plays there, and the owner Adam was happy to host. Her boyfriend handled the sound engineering for all the bands, while another of our staff members, Lois Bool, performed on the day – doing fire breathing, stilt-walking and dancing too!

For the fundraising gig itself Poppy invited a range of bands, playing everything from acoustic folk through to rock and metal – featuring lots of crowd-pleasing classics.

“Audience-wise, there was a few people there right at the beginning which I was quite happy about because I was scared no one was going to come in the day. But yeah it was cool, it was nice and steady throughout the day and then it got really busy! It was a good turnout in the end.”

Poppy worked hard to promote the event, creating a poster and sharing it through her social media accounts, bolstered by similar promotions from Molly’s Chambers and Autism Together.

Once the final power chord had reverberated into the night and the shutters came down on the venue, Poppy had raised a wonderful £618 to donate to Autism Together, to help inspire more musicians to pick up an instrument and play.

Poppy has plans to do more gigs like this in the future, and would certainly recommend others to take the plunge and organise their own fundraising concert.

“Yeah, 100%. It’s just so much fun and you’re just raising money for such a good cause, aren’t you? So, it’s rewarding as well – and it’s just a good way to get everyone together.”

Huge thanks to Poppy, for all her hard work and dedication in putting together this fabulous fundraising concert for Autism Together.

If you’d like to get involved in fundraising or put on an event of your own on behalf of our charity, then please head over to our Fundraising page and get in touch with our Fundraising Team.