Wow!! I could just leave this one word here and it would describe our experience at the Opening Ceremony at the Quayside on Friday evening for the Great Exhibition of the North. Having read some mixed reviews from others on this event I just wanted to put my thoughts forward.

I can understand the comments about the signposting of the loos and the food stalls, totally agree. But for me, that was completely surpassed by the content of the evening which featured Maximo Park singing live on a boat sailing down the Tyne, amazing fountains set to music, a wonderfully passionate poem which made me feel soooo proud to be a Geordie (even brought a tear to my eye!) and fabulous light-up drones in the sky that had me thinking I was on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind!

And it was all free!

The opening ceremony opened with a bang and closed the same way. I felt uplifted and proud and eagerly await what else the Exhibition has in store for us all. What did you think of the Opening Ceremony? What events are you already signed up to next?