MUSIC tastes have come and gone at North-East Christmas parties over the last 20 years, but the numbers are still running at a healthy 35,000 when it comes to the traditional format of a meal and entertainment provided by Washington-based company Encore.

Boss Andy Jones is celebrating organising events at Spennymoor Leisure Centre for two decades as well as providing the party spirit for shows at Darlington, Tyneside, Wearside, Durham and Hartlepool.

He remembers starting out by hiring the Sixties band, The Searchers, but says: “They would be regarded as a bit passé today, even though they are still doing well on the Sixties’ tours to theatres. In the past we’ve had the Grumbleweeds and The Black Abbots, but acts like that wouldn’t work today. Their audience is a little older now. These days the market requires good quality tribute bands.”

Shows in December feature Totally Take That, Queen FM, Abba Fever and Motown tribute the Blue Notes.

And the years when couples and family groups dominated the dance floor are gone. “Our typical customer is female and aged between her late Twenties and Forties and probably works in a bank or a major store. To be honest we tend to discourage all-male groups because there is potential for trouble there and we find most guys would rather spend £30 on drinks in a pub or club than £26.95 on a three-course meal at one of our party nights,” says Jones.

He adds that it was the Linda Wright Foundation which helped put his dinner nights on the map. “I wasn’t her agent,but when she came to Gateshead from Merseyside I booked her for every Christmas for about seven or eight years until she died on stage in 1995. She was a phenomenal performer and very fiery, with a hot temper... a character you didn’t mess with. Because I had her under contract and Spennymoor wanted her for Christmas parties it led to us going into business with the local authority,” says Jones.

He’s very proud of his reputation for organising Christmas events with several North-East local authorities and says: “Basically, if you pull a stroke with a local authority in Penzance, they get to hear about it in Inverness. Our job is to work from January to November to generate the bookings and then we email the council venues with the numbers and they put on the bar and the food. My reputation relies on the council putting on the dinner and show that we’ve promised, so it’s an important partnership.”

Until recently Encore were organising the Christmas entertainment at Darlington’s Kings Head Hotel, but Jones said that the entertainment bookings were put under pressure by the fire last year.

“We were approached by Darlington Football Club and we didn’t want to do two places in Darlington at the same time. We decided to run discos and food at the Northern Echo Arena on the weekends of December 4-5, 11-12 and 18-19 and bookings are going well. We were a bit anxious when the club was in administration for a period, but we were always confident that the club would be fine because we had such a good relationship with it.”

Asked about his favourite moment from so many years of organising Christmas entertainment, Jones opts for a chat with Brian Poole and the Tremeloes.

“It was quite a few years ago and Brian Poole told me that the band went to lots of places, but he liked coming up to the North-East to work with us the best. Then he looked me in the eye and said ‘that’s because we always get paid’."

■ For more information on Christmas parties at Spennymoor or the Northern Echo Arena, Darlington, ring Encore on 0191-419-1818 or go to encoreparties-events.co.uk