Tsunami Relief Cardiff Concert Raises £1.25 million

Cardiff, Wales hosted the largest charity concert since Live Aid took place 20 years ago to raise much needed aid funds for Asian tsunami relief efforts. The marathon concert, which included bands such as Eric Clapton, Charlotte Church, Manic Street Preachers and Keane, lasted for more than seven hours.

In excess of 60,000 people came to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, and millions more have been reported as joining the event on television, radio and internet. Immediate reports have indicated that the successful event had raised in the region of £1.25 million.

The huge event has taken place after extreme works from stadium management staffs, who in just the three weeks since the disaster have managed to prepare everything.

The event was entitled – Tsunami Relief Cardiff, and was quickly arranged after the Boxing Day disaster in which more than 220,000 people died.

Other music stars that offered their services for free to the event were Snow Patrol, Lemar, Aled Jones, Stereophonics and Jools Holland among others.

Other political figures and celebrities helped to raise awareness of the event, and these included Tony Blair, Mike Ruddock – the Welsh rugby coach, and Prince Charles.

The event began at 2pm GMT, and approximately 3,000 volunteers worked throughout the day for free. After hours of music and festivities then event came to a close with a huge flash screen proclaiming that the event had raised £1,248,963.

The stadium manager, Paul Sergeant reported that the event had been "phenomenal". He said, "The crowd have left singing. Everything has gone, for the whole three weeks, so smoothly. We have shown that this is Wales, we are capable of delivering. If the opportunity came round again we would do something again."

The number of people supporting and watching the concert was greatly increased by the numbers who could watch on BBC and also watch as it was streamed on the web.

All 60,000 tickets originally released were sold out within three days, and a further 1,000 later put on sale went in just 20 minutes.

All profits from the concert will go towards the relief effort, and none of the artists were paid for their performances.