The inaugural competition kicked off in October 2002 when a story was posted on the mikedolbear.com website inviting young drummers from around the UK to enter the first annual Young Drummer of the Year competition. The competition was put together to give the country’s young drumming talent a national and indeed international platform, which we hope will be the first steps in their musical career.

Since then the competition has seen tremendous growth both in the number of entrants and the standard of the finalists. In 2005 the event took a giant leap forward in terms of popularity and production, following sponsorship from the British fashion designer; Peter Werth.

The finals are held every year at the Royal Spa Theatre in Leamington Spa. This is a beautiful theatre and a great venue for the event with ample parking, it’s central location and good transport links. The staff are real pro’s and put a lot of work into helping us put on a great show year on year. We also assemble a great team of volunteers on the day who make the whole event possible.

In the year following the finals, the winner is kept very busy! Past winners have made numerous TV and radio appearances, as well as support slots for the like of Billy Ward and Thomas Lang, Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez and Stanton Moore and every winner opens the Drummer Live show in London.