2010 - A great year
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2010 is a big year in The Valleys. It sees the launch of ‘Valleys Heart and Soul of Wales’ campaign , a celebration of the past, present and future of one of the most fascinating parts of Wales. A whole series of events and community celebrations will be brought together to convince visitors and residents to get out and about in the Valleys.
Top Welsh band the Lost Prophets came home from Los Angeles and launched the campaign on Tuesday 19 January. Please click for further information on the Lostprophets in The Valleys...
Britain's favorite choir, Only Men Aloud, also returned to their roots supporting the campaign with a concert in New Tredegar.
It’s the year when the National Eisteddfod comes to The Valleys. Well, to The Works in Ebbw Vale to be precise. From July 31st to August 7th, the historic site will be the home of Wales’s world famous cultural festival where you’ll see and hear everything from contemporary rock music to ancient bardic poetry.
An ideal place to hold Wales’s most famous festival, The Works is the new name for the site where a vast ironworks once stood, supplying steel for Britain’s first railways. Its 21st Century reincarnation is a £350 million regeneration project that will include 720 energy-efficient homes set in vibrant new urban squares, a community hospital and a learning campus. A project that will create 2,000 new jobs in the area.
And the jewel in the crown at The Works will be the new Genealogy and Visitor Centre in the iconic Grade II listed building that was once the offices of the old works. The Centre’s Genealogy Experience will be entertaining and enlightening, allowing visitors to explore the past in all kinds of innovative and interactive ways.
And the Eisteddfod is not even the half of it. There are loads of other things going on in The Valleys in 2010. The headling events are Abertillery Blues Festival, The Turner and Penry Williams exhibition - Cyfarthfa Castle, Neath Food Festival, Ponty's Big Weekend, The Amman Valley Big Day Out, Guardian of the Valleys opening event, and The Big Cheese in Caerphilly, the Big Welsh Bite in Pontypridd and The World Heritage Weekend in Blaenavon. The finale to see the new year in will be Nos Galan Road Race.
