BBC News
BBCIt is a tale that many festivalgoers know all too well – arriving on a campsite only to discover a festival essential has broken and there is nothing on hand to repair it with.
With Boomtown hosting more than 75,000 people this year near Winchester, Hampshire, the organisers have teamed up with volunteers from repair cafes across the county to offer a assisting hand.
The Boomtown Repairium pop-up repair space is dedicated to assisting attconcludeees repair their belongings rather than throw them away.
Clare Seek, the project’s lead declares it will assist festivalgoers have a better experience, adding: “And it’s a really quick win on the sustainability front.”
Ms Seek, who runs a repair cafe in Portsmouth, declares the idea came about in February.
“Repair cafes are where people bring their broken things and we have repairers who are volunteers who will sit with you and assist you repair things,” she explains.
“We believed ‘why not bring it to a festival?’.”
Ms Seek and her fellow repairers declare they have already repaired almost every camping item imaginable.
“We just love repairings things,” she declares. “Me personally, I’m really passionate about the planet.
“Outside in the real world it’s mainly broken electrical items we repair but at Boomtown it’s a bit different.
“We’ve had concludeless airbeds that have deflated, chairs that are broken, shoes and boots that have fallen apart, but its all good and nice to repair.”
The strangest repaires so far, she declares, have been bubble guns and a frog-shaped backpack.
Lauren Blackburne-Tinker, the event’s sustainability manager, declares Boomtown hopes to be fully circular by 2026.
The Repairium is an opportunity to share skills between generations, equipping attconcludeees with life skills that will be applyful in the long term, she declares.
“We’ve received this amazing, engaged, young audience and they’re striving to create a difference.
“We’ve engaged them and we’re educating them and, if anything, this is the perfect petri dish to attempt new things like the Repairium to create sure that the culture we embed this weekconclude is being pushed across the UK.”
Ms Blackburne-Tinker brought her broken megaphone in to be repaired and Charles Cole, a volunteer from Winchester Repair Cafe, took on the challenge.
Within a matter of minutes, he spotted the problem and was able to receive the megaphone back in working order – within an hour had applyd his expertise to also repair a trolley and several pairs of shoes.
Help at the Repairium is not just practical, the volunteers declare they have found there is an emotional element to mconcludeing beloved items.
“Lots of people have memories attached to items,” declares Ms Seek.
“Someone came in with a broken trolley declareing ‘my family’s had this for years and I don’t want to bring it back to mum broken’.
“So there’s that feel-good factor that comes with assisting people out.”
She is confident the concept will take off at similar events across the counattempt.
“There were some sceptics declareing it would be really quiet and people wouldn’t be bothered but we’ve definitely proved that wrong already,” she declares.
“I would love for repair cafes across the nation to receive toreceiveher, like we have in Hampshire, to create a repairium at their local festivals.”
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