This years Byte night has been the most successful ever staged with over 800 people sleeping out to raise money to tackle the causes of youth homelessness.

With the current economic situation, as a board, we were naturally wary of setting specific targets this year.

Last year’s total surpassed all of our expectations so this year we focussed on our goals of recruiting additional teams and raising corporate sponsorship to cover the cost of the event.

In the end, we surpassed those targets and the final total is over £160,000 more than we raised last year.

On the night

The reception in London was hosted by Norton Rose, adjacent to the sleep out area on Potters field and the Compound Media team joined 819 other sleepers in London, Reading, Cambridge and Edinburgh.

This was an opportunity to meet some of the young people we’re aiming to help, raise some money in the charity auction and participate in the traditional quiz before heading outside at about 11pm.

Thankfully it stayed dry although quite cold and we chatted with the other sleepers for a while before finally bedding down at around 2am.

It’s amazing how much light and noise there is in London, even when most of the traffic has died down so sleep was uncomfortable and fitful. We awoke, grumpy and tired at around 6.15 and headed off for showers and comfy beds. Something the young people we’re helping don’t have the luxury of.

Thank you to all our supporters

A big thank you must go out to all our supporters, this is my 9th year sleeping out and every year I’m amazed by your continuing support.

We’re also very proud that over 95% of all the money raised goes directly to Action for Children. Thats very unusual for a charity event and a testament to the hard work of everyone involved.

It’s going to be a tough one to beat but we’ll all be back next year to give it our best shot!

Byte Night