Been flapping a a bit this week as its half term and help in Illustrator is not at my disposal as it was before! But alas i persevered and watched a ton of You Tube vids and sussed everything out i  needed to.
Had a lot of fun with the gradient tool, and making compound paths, which is very useful.

Pretty much got my poster finished now.  Its how i want it, just needs a few tweaks....