It’s taken a while but the Exe-Mas Winter Wonderland is now all wrapped up (pun intended)!
This was by far Re:Fuel’s biggest undertaking to date. 5 days straight of hardcore Christmas cheer is no mean feat and when you throw in the cold and the rain you have a recipe for a group of soggy grinches.
However, when we saw the smiles on people’s faces as well as how much we were able to raise for our charities, none of that stuff mattered. Almost 2,500 cars rolled through our Christmas drive thru and got to meet the reindeer, wave to the Snow Queen, laugh at the Elves and (most importantly) get to meet Santa himself!
But, we didn’t do this alone and there’s a lot of people and businesses we need to thank. Starting with our Exe-mas project manager Hanna who put together an event in record timing (no seriously, we recon it’s a record) that was not only fantastic to visit, but also a privilege to be apart of.
Secondly we should thank our charities for their support of both the event and the support they provide to those who need it in Exeter. Exeter Foodbank and Exeter Homeless Partnership. On that subject, who remembers seeing the mountain of donated food in Santa’s grotto? (Petrolheads, for your reference, it was opposite the F40 you were drooling over).
Moving on, we have to thank our fantastic event sponsors who played a huge part in making the event happen.
Without their sponsorship and support we wouldn’t have been able to begin to think of doing an event on this scale.
Now, the bit we Re:Fuelers want to hear about, the cars! We wanted each zone to have a car located within it that would complement the feel of said zone. If you were there let us know which was your favourite!
- Ferrari F40 – Mr Luckyssupercars
- McLaren Mercedes SLR 722s – Mr Luckyssupercars
- Ford Mustang, Puma and ST-Line – Vospers Ford
- Ferrari 812 Superfast – Windsor Carriage Company
- Austin 7 – Devon 7’s Owners Cub
Set up Support
Westpoint, Western Event Hire, Stage Engage, WT Construction, Prop Factory, Blamphayne Sawmills, Storm Press, Cotley Farms, To-An-Fro
Additional support
Moonshine, fool’s paradise, Event Exeter, Flying Head Studios, Absolute PR, School Sign, hedgerow, Print 2 Media, think!
None of the Re:Fuel team truly anticipated the level of interest that we received for the event, resulting in all 2,440 tickets being completely sold out. During the event itself it was amazing to see just how enthusiastic each and every family was who attended. From cars covered in tinsel to family members wearing matching ‘classic’ Christmas jumpers, it was easy to see that everyone was in the Christmas spirit.
A huge thanks to everyone who took part and helped us put together one of the only large-scale COVID safe events to actually go ahead in 2020. Now, time to start planning this year’s!