BLACKBURN band The Snowbyrds have won a national battle of the bands competition after performing in a major festival headlined by The Enemy.

The four-piece from Mill Hill — singer Chris Byrne, bassist Mark Slater, Iain Glendinning on guitar and drummer Kenny Haslam — were one of six unsigned bands selected to appear alongside the stars at the music event — deemed the UK’s biggest winter festival.

After playing a set in front of crowd of thousands at Butlins, The Snowbyrds won over the panel of judges, made up of music industry executives, to win the first prize — £500 of music vouchers to be used towards studio recording time or equipment.

The Big Reunion’s Once Upon A Time took place on two back-to-back three day weekends at the end of November at Skegness. With six arenas kitted out with state-of-the-art sound and lighting rigs, for The Snowbyrds, this was their biggest ever gig.

The festival line-up featured Reverend and the Makers, We Are Scientists, Dave Pearce, Tim Westwood, Steve Sutherland, Alex Zane, The View, CSS and Judge Jules.

Band member Mark Slater said: “We were last up and the others had scored pretty well, so we were a bit gutted. But we scored a nine, an eight and an eight. And the judges were all people from the music industry so we are hoping something will come of it.

“The event was brilliant, we were treated like VIPs all weekend and that isn’t something a group of lads from Blackburn get to do very often. We were drinking with Kate Lawler and Fran Cosgrove, while some of the bands playing, it was all very surreal.”

The Indie band, who say they are influenced by The Who with a touch of their own bluesy twang, beat off competition from bands from across the UK to appear at the event as part of a battle of the bands section to showcase unsigned talent.

Since forming in 2004 The Snowbyrds have since gone from strength to strength and recently recorded their first demo.

Earlier this year they represented England at a Polish music festival in a town twinning gig with bands from across the globe.

But the band have even bigger plans for the coming year with sponsorship talks with fashion label Blue Inc, and preparations in place to record a new CD on the back of their win.

Mark added: “We hope the new year will bring a lot for us.

"We’re going to be working on our promotion and we are in contact with a film-maker to shoot us a music video. So watch this space.”