FOUR companies faced a Dragons' Den-style panel in a bid to win a festive fiesta for their employees.

The Pitch For Your Party competition offered local firms the opportunity to win a Christmas party for 100 at the Bolton Whites Hotel at the Macron Stadium in Horwich.

All the entrants were whittled down to a final four whose teams were invited to explain to the judges why they deserved the complimentary bash worth £3,500 to be held in December.

They gave a five minute presentation and answered questions for 15 minutes on Friday.

The judges were actor Antony Cotton, who plays Sean Tully in Coronation Street; Liz Taylor, a party planner who has her own reality TV series coming out; John French, of Lancashire-based digital marketing agency Fat Media; and Kara Rose, of Kara Rose PR, which handles publicity for the Bolton Whites Hotel at the stadium.

Carl Darcy, head of sales and marketing at Bolton Whites Hotel, said: "The business community is very important to us here at Bolton Whites and this is a way of us giving something back in a fun and very different way for what is often the biggest event in a company’s social calendar.

"As we’re the original football hotel it seemed only right to have the pitches take place overlooking our own pitch and we look forward to making Christmas happen in style for the winning business."

Antony said: "This was a great opportunity for North West businesses to get staff to pull together and work hard for such a fantastic reward.

"Being from Manchester myself, I was thrilled to be asked to be on the judging panel and was proud to see the amount of work that the North West businesses put in to their pitches."

The winner of Pitch For Your Party will be announced soon.