Last year was a record year for Maker Faire events and attendance — with 530,000 attendees visiting 100 faires around the globe — and we’re now less than a week away from the premier maker event in the UK, Maker Faire UK, which will be held at the Life Science Centre in Newcastle-upon-Tyne this weekend.
The first Maker Faire UK took place in March 2009, and was held under canvas in Times Square in Newcastle. Although there were just 30 makers exhibiting, they drew a respectable crowd of 3,000 spectators during the day. Last year’s faire was a much larger affair, with ten times as many makers — almost 300 — drawing a crowd of 10,000 people.
This year’s faire will be the fifth Maker Faire to be held in Newcastle and it’s expected to be larger than ever, featuring 350 makers and a crowd at least as large as last year.
This year the faire will feature the giant car-crushing Robohand — whose creators brought it over from Amsterdam just for the faire — while the eerie Spacedog and the percussionists Spark! will entertain on the music stage. A pedal powered cinema will roll its way around, and there will also be a giant robot made out of 33 pink rubbish bins, a fire breathing dragon, and a robot wars arena. So book your tickets now.
Next year, Maker Faire UK and the smaller Mini Maker Faires scattered around the country — including Edinburgh, Brighton, Manchester and London — will be joined by a full scale faire: Our third flagship event will join the Bay Area and New York Maker Faires as one of our largest, and will be held in East London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at the Here East complex.
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