Torn tents, broken shoes, punctured air mattresses… If you’ve ever been to a festival, you’ll know that the site can look like a rubbish tip afterwards. At this year’s Reading Festival in Berkshire (UK), ten Repair Cafés joined forces to do something about it – fixing 265 broken items in just five days.
Reading Festival is a three-day outdoor music festival held in Reading, Berkshire (UK). It features top international artists across rock, alternative, indie, hip-hop, grime, electronic and pop.
This year, one of the festival marquees was home to a ‘Repairium’: a collaboration between ten local Repair Cafés from across Berkshire. “We had 35 volunteers repairing over five days, and we fixed 265 items for free,” says Ian Grange, who was involved in the initiative.
Boots, tent poles and trolleys
“With the wet weather, we had a lot of failed footwear, so we glued many soles back onto boots. We also repaired broken trolleys, air beds, tents and tent poles. We even had a dinosaur suit and a shark costume! We repaired them all, so they could go on to party another day,” Ian remembers with a smile.
In this way, Ian and his fellow repairers want to encourage a repair culture rather than the throwaway culture we have at the moment.
For an impression of this successful first Repairium at Reading Festival, watch this BBC News video.
More information
- Need some help repairing your own failing camping gear? Check out our tips and tricks section for repairing camping equipment to give your tent, air mattress, sleeping bag, backpack or holdall a new life!
- If you are a local, Reading also has its own Repair Café.
Excellent! Do you enjoy the bands?