Ceilidh and Folk Band Hire in London

With fiddles, accordion, guitar and an expert callerm Ceilidh Tree are a young and energetic band guaranteed to get you dancing! They know their dance tunes and also what you need to ask a prospective supplier and what they would need to know from a client.

What do you need to know from an organiser in order to provide a comprehensive quote?

In order to supply a full quote, we'd request the event date. If you don't have a date as yet that's fine - a month or even approximate time of the year is still useful to know. Again, if you have a venue booked then that's very useful to know but otherwise, just the location or approximate area will give us an idea. We'd also request the number of guests, age range, dancing ability and likely band size you'd request. Please do let us know any special requests you might have - e.g. specific type of ceilidh - we are often asked to focus on exclusively Scottish dances and tunes for example.

What advice would you give to a customer looking to hire a provider in your area of work?

Try and listen to as many recordings and videos of the band in advance. Also, ask if the band has Public Liability Insurance and PAT tested equipment. Ask whether the band will be flexible in terms of timings on the event date (this can be important as it's very difficult to predict in advance how long an event will take). It's a very good idea to talk through with us in advance to give a full flavour of the kind of event you are looking for - e.g. is it a fairly formal affair or would you like a more laid back / organic approach?

Please tell us a little bit about how and why you started the business.

The band and I grew up performing at and attending ceilidhs so it was a natural progression to pursue this professionally. We have experienced many fun (and not so fun) ceilidhs over the years and consider ourselves expert in knowing how to maximise the fun elements at your event. We believe that folk dancing is such a positive thing for people to include in their events and works as a fantastic way of bringing two families together during a wedding or as an icebreaker at events where not all of the guests know each other.

Please tell us about a booking you've had through Add to Event, how did it go? Would you recommend us to others?

We performed for a joint 50th birthday (100th!) just outside London and made sure to get everyone dancing! We'd worked closely with the client in advance to establish the best time for the ceilidh to happen (when to take breaks etc.) but were flexible on the night in terms of the start time of the ceilidh - timings were a little delayed but we were happy to take a shorter break in order for the event to go well. We started with a very easy dance to gauge the dancing ability/energy levels of the guests and as there were quite a few older and much younger guests we kept the dances really simple for the first set to make sure as many people as possible were enjoying it. We were then able to include some trickier dances towards the end.
We've enjoyed working with Add to Event - one thing we especially like about the platform is that you are dealing directly with the client from the earliest point possible - this makes it much quicker to establish a useful dialogue with the client in order to work out exactly what they are after.