A singer from Birtley in County Durham has been crowned the best pub singer by winning a regional singing competition, run by pub company Punch Taverns.
The winning singer, Jess Wilson, battled it out against ten singers from across the North East, North Yorkshire and Cumbria in the Sing it to Win it competition grand final, held at Eastlea Community Centre in County Durham.
Almost 700 singers from 65 Punch pubs across the North-East, North Yorkshire and parts of Cumbria, competed in their local pub throughout February and March. The winning singer from each pub went through to the regional semi-finals and 10 acts were then chosen to perform at the grand final on May 17th.
Judges on the night included Emily McNamee (from X Factor’s Bad Lashes) and Steve Bone (a professional musician who trained at the Royal School of Music) along with Punch Taverns’ David Wigham, Mandy Southall and Danny Hawkins.
Jess Wilson, aged 22 from Birtley who works as an estate agent in Gosforth, won the judges over with her renditions of One Republic’s ‘Counting Stars’, Swedish House Mafia’s ‘Save the World’, Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Before you Cheat’ by Carrie Underwood.
All finalists received £300 and Jess walked away with £5,000 on the night.
Winner Jess, who was representing Punch Taverns- owned the New Coach Inn in Killingworth said: “I sing at the New Coach Inn and run an open-mic night. When the Sing it to Win it competition was launched, the locals and the manager suggested I entered. This is the first time I’ve entered a competition on this scale and I can’t believe I’ve won.
“I’ve loved taking part in the competition and I had a lot of support from my family and friends on the night. It was down to their support and encouragement that I had the confidence to perform well on the night as I wanted to make them proud! I really enjoyed it and I would definitely consider entering another local competition.”
Punch’s Regional Operations Director Mandy Southall, who was also one of the judges, was pleased with the competition’s success: “This was our debut competition and the standard of singers was really high. Jess performed really well and blew us away with her diversity and musicality and we particularly enjoyed her version of ‘Billie Jean’, which was very original and showed a fabulous tone to her voice. We could tell how much music meant to her.
“We are always looking for ways to help our pubs build their business and pub competitions like these are big business drivers. They create a real sense of competition and community – as seen from the support given to Jess.
“We also run the biggest pub darts and quiz competitions in the world and find that we are one of the few companies who can deliver competitions on this scale. We’ve been really pleased with our debut singing competition and may even look to hold this in other regions or even nationwide.”