Sleep Out 2019

We have some sad news regarding our Sleep Out event due to take place on Friday 25th October.

Unfortunately, this year we have struggled to attract the numbers that we had hoped for to Sleep Out in Plain Sight at Festival Square. At this point, we have realised that we will no longer be able to deliver the event and we can only apologise to all of the participants, the performers, staff and the volunteers who were due to attend next week. We have therefore very sadly decided to cancel the event.

We understand that this is probably a blow to many of you who have worked so incredibly hard to raise funds for our work with young people at risk of homelessness in Edinburgh and the Lothians. We are truly grateful for your hard work and supporting our mission to end youth homelessness. We hope that you are able to understand our decision to place both the experience of all of the participants who have kindly decided to Sleep Out in Plain Sight, as well as our charitable goals at the forefront of our decision to cancel the event.

We equally are very disappointed that this event was not a success, especially after all of the time and effort that was put into it by both our staff, performers and volunteers. We hope that you can understand the circumstances and accept our sincerest apologies.

As for where to go from here, we have a few suggestions:

In order to give you the opportunity to participate in a Sleep Out event and not to let your hard work go to waste, we have been in contact with Social Bite, who have very kindly said that our participants are welcome to sleep out at the World’s Big Sleep Out event taking place on December 7th. Whilst this event will primarily be supporting Social Bite’s work, they have said that all of our participants are able to attend with all of the money that you have raised still going to support our work with young people at risk of homelessness in Edinburgh and the Lothians. If you would like to take place in the World’s Big Sleep out in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens on 7th December, then please send us an email at events@rocktrust.org. You can find more about the event here: https://social-bite.co.uk/sleep-in-the-park/.

Another potential option would be for you to instead accept an invitation to attend our annual big fundraising dinner taking place in February/March 2020. The dinner last year was held at the Assembly Roxy and was 1980’s themed with an accompanying Bingo, hosted by the celebrated Drag Queen, Gingzillla and an after party DJ’d by Nasty P. Tickets to this event were sold at £50pp, however in this situation we would of course waiver the ticket price. The event this year will have a different theme, location and associated activities, which will be made public before the event.

In terms of recompense, we will either be happy to refund your registration fee and/or any individual donations made to your Rock Trust Sleep Out fundraising page. For details as to how this can be done, please email events@rocktrust.org.

If you have any questions about the cancellation, refunds, taking part in the Social Bite event, or different ways you can support our work then please do get in touch with events@rocktrust.org or call 0131 557 4059.

Our U18 Sleep Out for 12-18 year olds will continue to take place on November 15th.