Festival of Thrift is bringing its hugely popular celebration of culture, sustainability and style back to Billingham in the Tees Valley this September.
On Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 September visitors can thrift over a packed weekend of free events with over 17 outdoor performances and installations including 10 north east premieres, dozens of hands-on workshops, and over 90 stalls from independent traders and makers.
Billingham Town Centre and John Whitehead Park will be transformed into a joyful creative hub for thrifty and resourceful living, exploring imaginative ways to live well while treading lightly on the planet.
Festival of Thrift is an event where creativity meets sustainability by exploring topics around nature, climate and the environment through playful and surprising encounters.
The organisers invite everyone to get involved: learn some thrifty skills, save resources, craft with natural materials, walk the catwalk in vintage fashion, enjoy interactive installations, entertaining performances, and help to collectively imagine a caring, sustainable future.
The festival takes place across different zones with Billingham Town Centre becoming Slow Fashion Alley, and John Whitehead Park turned into a celebration of the natural world, with performance, dance, adventure and enchanting tales from around the world.
Highlights for 2025 include:
Slow Fashion Alley, Billingham Town Centre
Slow Fashion Alley is a gateway to sustainable style, self-expression and conscious fashion choices. For the first-time this year it also includes second-hand record stalls in Billingham Library.
- Slow Fashion Alley highlights include:
Pan~// Catwalk by Zwermers (North East premiere) – Two performers, accompanied by a one-man orchestra, wear an endless stream of different outfits down the slow catwalk. Playing with the tendency to label, categorise and judge people based on their clothing, in a celebration of fluidity and self-expression. - life is short. buy that dress by Directie & Co (North East premiere) is about fast fashion and overconsumption with a gigantic mountain of clothes in the leading role! This dramatic and colourful dance theatre performance is a story of beauty in a world that’s drowning in clothes that get thrown away.
- Best in Show – Unleash your inner fashionista at the Best in Show event, compered by Wayne Hemingway – where unique style takes centre stage and shines. Dress to impress and walk the catwalk in the finest thrifty attire, vintage treasures and sustainable gems. Watch out for We Great Ladies who will award Best in Show rosettes throughout the day to stylish individuals, young people, families and dogs.
- Charity Super.Mkt – is a curated collection of quality, second-hand fashion and accessories, brought to you by the UK’s best charity retailers. Offering the best of sustainable shopping that benefits everybody and furthers environmental benefits.
- SWAPSHOP by Teesside Hospice – bring unwanted fashion items and accessories to the ever-popular Swapshop as it returns for another year of thrifty swaps.
John Whitehead Park
With 13 performances and installations each day, the park is packed with events for all age ranges, exploring nature and environmental themes including water use, natural habitats, trees, birds, composting and recycling.
Activities in the workshop tent aim to inspire individual and community action, including sustainable seed sowing, make your own eco-cleaning products, vase-making from plant waste and fungus, recycled paper jewellery, and sculpting with a tonne of clay. Plus, lots of stalls from independent traders and community partners. Festival goers are also welcome to relax, get some food or have their own picnic.
Performance highlights in John Whitehead Park include:
- Bamboo by NoFit State – World-class circus artists reveal the fragility and beauty of our interconnected life on this planet. This high-impact, high skill performance using only bamboo and human bodies, constructs towering sculptures which morph, transform and become an improbable, delicate playground.
- World Kiosk by Variable Matter (North East premiere) – Multi-award-winning artist-collective Variable Matter present a street kiosk installation where you can sip tea whilst listening to stories collected from communities all over the world, including Billingham residents. Listen and connect with the life journeys of what makes people who they are.
- Hydropunk by Artizani – is a chaotic and playful water machine full of games and puzzles, with a powerful environmental message. With only 1000 litres of water to work with, once it’s gone, it’s gone. To keep the water flowing, people must work together to conserve and recycle the water.
- The Hide by Tilly Ingram Theatre (North East premiere) is a live solo performance audio installation where birdwatching meets non-visible disability. Artist Tilly Ingram shares her love of birdwatching, her struggles as a woman with a non-visible disability and the story of a disabled white-tailed eagle.
- The Museum of Memorable Trees by Harry Pizzey (North East premier) is an immersive art installation accompanied by sound, exploring the deep connections people have with trees. At the heart of the display are personal stories shared by visitors about trees that have marked special moments in their lives.
- Early Weaves by Ascension Dance is a heart-warming tale of friendship, creativity and play made almost entirely from willow, a fully compostable, carbon-sink material. Two friends embark on a journey using willow, sound and movement to create magic, laughter and play for early years children.
- Like a Tree by Hocus Pocus Theatre is a magical story based on climate change themes told with handmade puppets and a vintage pram puppet theatre. Down in the woods a sapling grows, up through the ground and towards the sky. At the same time, a child is born, and their lives entwine in a touching tale of life, love and everything after.
In addition, the festival presents the world premiere of Mud Plant Rave by Institute of Thrifty Ideas – a new production by the creative team behind Festival of Thrift with original work by award winning poet Helen Mort and Newcastle-based sound artist Me Lost Me. Audiences are immersed into the world of the Mud Ravers reconnecting with the natural world through ritual, movement and community. Structured as a journey through a plant’s lifecycle, it invites people to reflect, move and deeply engage with the environment and each other.
Festival of Thrift Co-Creative Directors, Dominic Somers and Tanya Steinhauser, said: “More than ever this year, the festival brings people together in joyful encounters, transforming Billingham and fostering a sense of belonging and resilience through creativity. Through the work of artists, performers and hands-on-workshops we can all enjoy and explore imaginative ways to live well and more sustainably.”
Festival co-founder and board member Wayne Hemingway MBE added: “It’s 12 years since we launched the inaugural Festival of Thrift. We had ambitions for it to grow and have impact but what has been achieved across its various Tees Valley locations over the years is phenomenal.
“Over half a million people have attended Festival of Thrift, over 500 small businesses have traded with us, there have been over 2,000 performances and workshops and the economic impact is immense. It’s always a highlight of my year. See you Billingham in September. “
