Sunday 20 December 2009

Carols in the Domain

Carols in the Domain is a free Xmas concert that takes place every year and aims to raise money for the Oasis Youth network - a part of the Salvation Army which works with homeless youngsters. Woolies has sponsored this concert for the past five years - it's a big corporate activity for us, as we also raise money for Oasis by the selling of Candle Bags. These contain candles (an integral part of the concert experience) as well as loads of other goodies, and sell for $15.

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Weeks before the concert it's a massive organisation to get hold of the products and pack all 12ooo bags! They are then crated and sent to the various selling points for the day of the concert. It's all organised by Donna - the PA to my ultimate boss - who has been very helpful to us as we moved over here, so Gus and I were happy to volunteer to sell bags on the day.

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We had absolutely no idea what a huge event this concert turned out to be.

First of all we had to find the Domain - which turned out to be the bit of the Botanical Gardens that slopes down from the city!


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We got there about 3pm - the concert started at 8.30pm - and were staggered by how many people were already there.

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People had even camped out overnight to bag a prime spot. And they continued to arrrive -to the point where the police had to turn latecomers away at about 8pm, as the venue had reached capacity of 50,000.

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I was on selling duty with other Woolies volunteers - the hottie in the red cap is Cameron from corporate finance. He sold quite a few bags - especially to the girls! I did well when he went for a coffee!

By about 7ish we had sold all the bags and so were able to go and join the concert crowd. As hard working volunteers we had VIP access to the area right in front of the stage. It had been a very hot day so we were gasping for a glass of something sparkly!

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These VIP lawn seats gave us a great view of the evening's entertainment and of the real VIP's who were in the blue seats you can just see in the photo above. Amongst the celebrities sitting just behind us were Nicole Kidman and Kristina Kenneally - the NSW Premier.

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The concert was televised nationally and was great fun. A mix of popular Xmas songs with well known carols - sung by famous Australian's (we had no idea who they were - probably some actress from Home & Away) and international stars such as Englebert Humperdink (still alive apparently) and Katherine Jenkins. She was fantastic but the biggest cheer of the night was reserved for The Wiggles and their rendition of that holiday classsic "Go Santa Go". Nope, no idea either. It must be an Antipodean thing.

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