FESTIVAL organisers have thanked visitors of this years Boltfest and Festwich for raising more than £7,000 for charity.

Visitors to the free festivals were this year asked to donate to Christies Hospital.

The hospital is currently at the forefront of bringing a revolutionary new type of cancer treatment to the UK called Proton Beam Therapy.

Boltfest, which returned for its second year, welcomed 10,000 people into Queens Park, over two days in May and more than 6,000 rockers turned out to celebrate Festwich’s fifth birthday, in St Mary’s Park in Prestwich, in July.

Across the two festivals visitors donated £7,633, which organiser Jools Taylor said is a “brilliant amount”.

He added: “It was the first year we had asked people to donate money and it went really well.

“It was more than we thought we would get and because it was the first time we didn’t have anything to go off.

“We had buckets in the festival for people to donate into and people were giving £10 notes, they weren’t just giving a couple of quid or loose change, which was great to see.

“We want to do it for charity every year now because it does make a difference and that’s what we want to do.

“And if you can raise money, by putting on a festival where everyone is just enjoying themselves, I think it is brilliant.”

The Boltfest event, this year, included tribute performances to the likes of Queen, Foo Fighters, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and AC/DC meanwhile acts at Festwich included Whole Lotta DC, Guns or Roses, Mentallica and Motorheadache, plus many more.

Rockers will be able to register for tickets, to both festivals, from next week and more details including the dates and line-up for the events will be released in the coming weeks.