Christmas carolers at Costa

Costa is bringing festive spirit to Exeter’s Princesshay this weekend teaming-up with UK children’s charity Youth Music to bring shoppers some Christmas entertainment with a difference.

Talented young people from the local Wren Music project will come together to form a specially crafted Christmas singing group to entertain customers between 11am and 1pm and will treat them to a variety of Christmas music, revamped with a modern twist.

The activity comes as part of Costa’s ongoing Christmas campaign to refresh the UK’s most traditional Christmas songs in the build up to the holiday season.

Research commissioned by Costa saw Cliff Richard’s ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ and Band Aid 20’s remake of ‘Do They Know It's Christmas?’ voted as the most disliked Christmas songs by the UK public, with the former being removed from in-shop playlists.

Costa’s campaign partner, Youth Music, provides more than 90,000 young people with the opportunity to make music every year, helping many of them to overcome the challenges they face in their lives and enabling others to realise their full musical potential.

The organisation is being gifted with a £10,000 donation from Costa, which will help continue to provide great opportunities for young people across the country.

Kevin Hydes, UK Retail Marketing Director from Costa commented: “We are really delighted to be working alongside Youth Music to provide some great festive music for our customers. We hear many of the same Christmas songs every year, so we cannot wait to see what the talented group comes up with in Exeter. It’s certainly not be missed and we hope the performance gets everyone in the festive mood this Saturday!”

Glen Whitehead, Development Director for Youth Music said: “We are very excited to be taking part in such a great initiative with Costa. The young performers from Wren Music will be delighted to show off their music-making talents with creative new takes on old tunes and with some new alternatives to the Christmas repertoire shoppers usually have to listen to – repeatedly!

"We hope local people will take a coffee break on Saturday to pop by and listen to some uniquely different Christmas music provided by young local singers and musicians.”