A POPULAR children's event reached millions of people after it went digital this year.

Play Day 2020 was a very different day in Wrexham this time, but Wrexham Council has announced it worked and thanks to the support of the public, the many videos and posts that were put out reached a massive 4 million people.

A council spokesman said; "We’d like to offer our thanks to everyone who made a film, or even just shared a film on social media.

"We know that many of you were unable to be as active as you would have liked due to shielding and furlough, but hope you still managed to watch at home.

"On the day, 51 films were uploaded onto YouTube and our social media channels.

"Many of you supported our Play Team, us as you do every year, and embraced a new way of doing things, we can’t thank you enough (there are too many of you to thank individually) as we know you share our vision to do something nice for the children of Wrexham as we support their right to play."

Cllr Andrew Atkinson, lead member for children’s services, said: “It was a brilliant event once again and staff deserve the credit for all the work they put in to make out our young people didn’t miss out on any of the fun this year.

"I had hoped to stay dry this year with it being a virtual event – but this wasn’t to be the case as my own children were determined I wouldn’t miss out.

"Thanks everyone for your fantastic support once again for Play Day ”

This year the council welcomed new people to its Playday team.

The council spokesman added: "The Co-op publicised the “make a noise” in its six Wrexham stores and Beth and Craig in the council’s communications department worked tirelessly to get all the clips ready and put the clips out throughout the day.

"Wrexham Family Information Service, who usually run the information point, were able to be playful this year and made their own rock snake.

"People who would normally visit to show their support took a more active approach and stories and speeches were made by the Mayor Rob Walsh (who both wrote his own story and played the drums), Cllr John Pritchard (lead member for people, youth services and anti poverty) Cllr Andrew Atkinson (lead member for children’s services), Donna Dickenson (head of prevention and inclusion) and Craig Mathews (community and restorative lead).

"Hopefully next year we will be back to the usual town centre mayhem on Wednesday, August 4, and not worrying about subtitles or transferring film clips.

"This year was a learning curve everyone and now we’ll always have our film clips to remind us of how well everyone did – and they will be staying on the council YouTube so we can all still access them.

"Staff can now take a well earned break and they’re very grateful that, for this year at least, there were no soggy cardboard, pallets and sand to put away."