Events R Talented was set up in 2018 by four event industry friends to raise funds for charity by organising and hosting entertainment auditions for people in the Event Industry with a performance talent that is different from their day jobs.

Think BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT but for the EVENTS INDUSTRY!

All funds raised go to our supported charity. For 2024, we will be extending our fund-raising activities by doing fund-raising and awareness at a range of event industry events and we have also changed direction slightly and are supporting a UK national cause. We are supporting 'Rare Dementia Support in association with the National Brain Appeal.

There are seven Rare Dementias supported by Rare Dementia Support.

These are:

FrontoTemporal Dementia - FTD

Progressive Patient Asphasia - PPA

Young-Onset Alzheimer's Disease - YOAD

Posterior Cortical Atrophy - PCA

Familial FrontoTemporal Dementia - fFTD

Familial Alzheimer's Disease - FAD

Lewy Body Dementia - LBD

The diagnosis of a rare dementia can bring with it a set of unique and complex challenges. Rare dementias are proportionately more likely to develop in individuals at a younger age (before 65 years old), raising challenges relating to individual and family transitions (e.g. work, retirement planning, childcare and care transitions).

Following diagnosis, many find that existing health, social and voluntary services do not cater adequately for their individual needs. More specifically, they may find that established dementia support groups are not particularly relevant to their situation. Members of these groups can often be significantly different to them in terms of age, life situation and symptoms.

The brother of one of Events R Talented's co-founders has recently been diagnosed with Semantic/PPA FrontoTemporal Dementia. He originally started showing behavioural changes/symptoms back in 2019 but was only formally diagnosed with the condition in September 2023.

Only 1 in 5 dementia sufferers have FTD and the ratio is even less to have a combination of PPA and FTD.

He was 63 years old when his symptoms first started to show!

His life is now severely constrained to massive effect by the development of the disease and importantly it has also massively impacted on his wife, who has become his 24/7 carer.

Their plans for a new life in early retirement are radically changed!

All the funds raised from all our charity activities from our launch on 27th October and through out 2024 will go directly towards:

- Supporting carers, their families across the UK, who are looking after Rare Dementia Sufferers as well as the individual patients themselves.

- Contributing to the building of the RDS Centre in the UK

- Research into treatments for these rare dementias.

As far as PPA and FTD are concerned, there are currently no dedicated medications to treat, to delay symptoms etc. The only treatment is to develop a care plan for the sufferers and their carers.

You can find out a lot more about Rare Dementia Support by visiting

https://www.raredementiasupport.org

CHARITIES PREVIOUSLY HELPED BY ERT

In 2023, we supported SEED, a UK charity that supports people with a range of eating disorders , raising £7347

In 2022, we supported Hospices of Hope raising £6000, A UK based charity benefiting children with life limiting or threatening illness in Europe's four poorest countries, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Albania.

In 2019 we raised £8500 for Buses 4 Homeless, a charity supporting the homeless in a different way in the UK

In 2018 we raised £7000 for an Aids/HIV charity supporting disadvantaged children in rural South Africa.

The winner of our competition gets to perform on stage at the M&IT Awards Dinner to over 1200 events professionals and is invited onto a special 5 day trip to the Caribbean.

OUR PREVIOUS WINNERS

The 2023 winner is Reina Villaneuva who works as a Marketing Director within the events & exhibition world. She is a fantastic singer and really wowed the audience at the 2023 M&IT Awards Dinner. Reina has kindly offered to support us where she can during our 2024 campaign. This will start with her performing at our Manchester Launch as part of The Famtastic Awards Dinner on 27th October 2023

Our 2022 winner was Johanna Potkin, who completely shone at the M&IT Awards and earned a standing ovation with her flute playing. Jo runs her own agency but still finds time to enjoy he rekindled passion for the flute and was asked to play with The Halle Orchestra in Manchester.

Our 2019/21 winner was Megan Urwin, who is also a singer and who wowed the audience at both our final and at the M&IT Awards. Still singing for pleasure she is very much a name for the future in events having enjoyed promotion to senior account manager and was a C&IT A Lister in 2022.

Our 2018 winner was Eiza Murphy. She actually left the events industry a year or so after winning and is now developing a successful career as a singer/songwriter based in Los Angeles, at the time of writing she has had 3 Spotify Number One songs.