A MUSIC shop is celebrating five years since opening with a month of activities and a prize fund in excess of £20,000.

Throughout October, Absolute Music will be marking the anniversary of moving into their Knighton Heath superstore on Ringwood Road.

The outlet, which first came to Bournemouth 14 years ago, is holding a wide range of seminars, workshops, in-store only promotions and competitions.

The current prize fund stands at more than £20,000 with equipment from the biggest brands in guitars, drums, keyboards, live sound, recording and music tech up for grabs.

Each week of October there will be a special spotlight on the departments of Absolute Music.

This commences with Guitar Week from October 1 to 8, followed by Drums Week from October 9 to 15, Hi Tech Week from October 16 to 22 and ending with Performance Week from October 23 to 31.

On each Saturday an Expo day will take place at the store, with product specialists from the brands on hand and also doing demonstrations, running seminars and giving away bags of free goods.

Richard Bottom, head of marketing at Absolute Music in Bournemouth, said: "The event is a great opportunity for people to come in for free and meet all the suppliers.

"We are offering a selection of great promotions across the month and hopefully it will be popular.

"We have been supporting the local music community in Bournemouth for a very long time and a year ago started offering BTEC courses as well.

"The store is more than just retail and we have expanded in many areas in our time here."

Running alongside all of this will be four national competitions including the Best Guitar Solo over a backing track with prizes from Fender, Line6 and Boss up for grabs.

A competition for One Minute Drum Solo has a first prize of a Premier snare drum, while a Best Original Song competition will be judged by Ray Dorset - Mungo Jerry - and Frank Turner, with prizes including thousands of pounds worth of recording gear.

Finally, musicians can enter the Best Live Performance competition, where prizes include a day of recording at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios and a professional level PA package.