Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
3000 mile trip for the gig
A competition winner will be making an 8000-mile round trip to see this weekend’s much-anticipated Elton John gig – from her hometown of Airdrie.
Radio station Air 106.1 in the Canadian namesake town of Airdrie in Alberta ran a major“Big Ticket”competition throughout last month to give away a trip for two consisting of tickets for the New Broomfield concert plus flights, accommodation and spending money.
Lucky listener Barbra Doherty won the top prize at the contest’s special grand finale party; and now she and husband Pat are preparing to fly across the Atlantic to be among the thousands attending Saturday’s show.
The couple will be staying at awardwinning Chapelhall bed and breakfast Shawlee Cottage, where owners Cathy and Sandy Aitken are eagerly awaiting the arrivaliv val of their special guests.
CathyCa athy told the Advertiser:“It’s really exciting;it ting; who would have thought that there re e would be someone from Airdrie in Albertabe erta coming over to the show? “We’ve We’vebeenWbeen in incontactcontact with the radio tie e on station officials and said we’ll definitely take good care of their winners; they told us that’sth hat’s why they picked us, as they’d seen ourr reviewsr reviews and thought this would be a nice e place to send them.”
AirAi r 106.1 gave away 106“boarding passes”toss ses”to winning callers to the station duringrin ng May, inviting them all to a gala party rty y where six finalists were then chosen to ha haveave a chance to win the trip to Scotland.ot tland.
EachEa ach was invited to open a gift-wrapped box x–– and much to her delight, Barbra’s turnedn ed out to contain the winning tickets for theth he gig.
Itt won’t won’tw just be Shawlee’s guests who are attendingen nding the megastar musician’s show at New Broomfield – as the ownershaveowners have alsobeenalso been caught up in the excitement.
Cathy added:“We just bought tickets last week; we thought it was silly not to go along and be part of it when it’s just down the road.
“We’re fully booked for this weekend, so we’ll see how many guests might be going along to the concert and maybe try to arrange a minibus to take everybody along.”
Airdrie in Alberta“was first established as a railway siding in 1889 during the construction of the Calgary and Edmonton Railway, named for Airdrie, Scotland”.
The Canadian city had a population of 61,842 at its 2016 municipal census; compared to 46,772 for the Monklands equivalent, according to statistics from last month’s council election.