Originally published at: Guest post: Community repair at a music festival - The Restart Project
This guest post is by Frank Schoofs, organiser of the Marlow Repair Café and founder of The Repair Finder Ltd.
Summer is music festival season. The news is full of people having fun and dancing. However, the news is also full of pictures of litter and broken or abandoned items strewn across the festival grounds. In fact, 58% of festivalgoers report that they have left, lost or broken something at a festival.
Reducing waste and increasing the life of ‘stuff’ in an easily accessible, affordable way is exactly what the community repair movement is about. There are thousands of Repair Cafés or Restart Parties across the world, including over 600 in the UK alone. Could a “community repair tent” work at a festival too? Would we be able to repair things there and then? Would people even use such a service if it was offered? Which festival would be suitable to trial this?
The Cambridge Folk Festival is not too big (approximately 10,000 visitors), but, crucially, it already has a strong focus on environmental impact. In 2023, it received an Outstanding Certification from A Greener Future. When I pitched the repair concept to the organisers, they were enthusiastic – always a good start! The local community repair umbrella organisation, Cambridge Carbon Footprint, also jumped on board, allowing us to use their insurance policy, renting us a “stock” toolkit for the duration of the event and connecting us into their pool of amazing local volunteers.
And so, on Thursday 25th July, we opened our Community Repair Corner at a music festival, running from 10 am to 5 pm each day. The festival organisers gave us a prime location: a spacious gazebo, right on the approach to the main arena entrance. That meant nearly everyone had to walk past us.
The response was unanimously positive. People walked up to just have a chat about community repair, find their nearest Repair Café or even to ask how they could volunteer with one. Others shuffled up with a “I don’t think you could repair this but…”. In a few cases, visitors knew exactly what needed doing, but just did not have the tools available – so we loaned them tools so they could do the fix themselves.
However, once the reputation of the repair volunteers’ skills got out, the confidence of our visitors increased too. Over four days, we did 133 repairs – and only had to give up on 3 items.
The most common repairs were:
- Collapsed camping chairs (with metal posts)
- The “shoulder” seams worn on folding “seat” camping chairs
- Clothing, bags or rucksacks tears, rips, or broken zips
- Glasses (sunglasses or prescription)
- Holes in air beds or tents
- Shoes with bits coming loose
We also fixed an inflatable unicorn from the kids paddling pool, star-gazing binoculars, a mobility scooter and an artist’s golden jacket 45 minutes before their main stage performance!
People would walk by on subsequent days and give a big thumbs up: “still working!” The best and most concise endorsement came a from a group of passers-by one evening, when the curtains were closed, but our sign was still out: “Repair corner… F*** yeah!”
I believe that our Community Repair Corner served three main purposes:
- Reduced waste at the festival by (at least temporarily) repairing items.
- Improved people’s experience at the festival, by (at least temporarily) repairing chairs, glasses, airbeds, umbrellas, clothing.
- Increased awareness of the (community) repair movement, linking with visitors’ local Repair Café(s). People could observe a Repair Café in a relaxed, open environment, without needing to go to one. Once they see and understand what it is, they are more inclined to visit.
The organisers, visitors and volunteers buzzing afterwards and keen to make the Corner a permanent fixture at future Cambridge Folk Festivals!
A huge thank you to Becky, Hazel, Ella (Cambridge Folk Festival), Sandy (Cambridge Carbon Footprint), Ali, Clive, Gina, Jon, Mark, Mike, Louise, Sam, Tessa (volunteers) for helping to make it happen.
Which other festivals will follow suit and set up a Community Repair Corner?
