Pitt Fest 2014: Sunshine, music and craftiness in all its glory

Pitt Fest 2014 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Our second annual Pitt Rivers Museum festival – Pitt Fest – has been and gone, and what fun it was! The sun shone and over 3,000 people came on a September Saturday to make, handle, listen, watch dance, eat, drink and be inspired by a wide selection of stallholders and activities. The weather couldn’t have been better, with groups of people sitting all over the lawn in front of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Pitt Fest: Need / Make / Use describes the cycle of necessity, ideas, design, experimentation and production that has driven technological change and innovation in all cultures from the deep past to the present day - essentially, how people USE the things they have to MAKE the things they NEED. This year Pitt Fest was bigger and better than ever, with six different zones including the performance stage, a workshop zone, a family crafts village, a food corner, craft market and extra activities and tours inside the Museum!





Spinning Workshop © Pitt Rivers Museum



The Festival is a chance for people of all ages to get hands-on with some of their ideas about the collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Who made that object? What for? How and with what materials? Do we use something similar today? 











Carve a Carrot Recorder Workshop © Pitt Rivers Museum

The ‘Carve a Carrot recorder’ stand was especially popular, with over 80 carrot recorders being made in 2.5 hours. Children and parents were busy all afternoon making balloon-powered cars and boats, cord bracelets, drumming and henna tattoos, all run by our museum volunteers. Special thanks to our fabulous volunteers for delivering such great activities – we will do this again next year!



Lunas Dance © Pitt Rivers Museum

The stage hosted an array of music and performances for all tastes. Spoon workshop participants displayed their new skills whilst Sol Samba and the Oxford Ukeleles hosted some uplifting Carnival style music. The bell ringers were the ‘headliners’ of the event, having performed at ‘Britain’s got Talent’. For the first time we hosted a dance performance as part of the event - Lunas Dance put on a fantastic trio dance performance on the lawn.

Pitt Fest Trail © Pitt Rivers Museum

The inside of the Museum was equally busy with extra History and Highlights tours, Introductory Talks, Architecture Talks as well as a small lamp making activity on the Lower Gallery. The special Pitt Fest Trail kept people on their toes by challenging them to design a shield or finding ingeniously made objects such as a sieve made from a movie canister!

The Pitt Rivers worked with over 47 partners this year. New things were tried and tested to build on the successes of our first ever Need/Make/Use festival in 2013, and we were delighted with how the day unfolded. NMU Day is a FREE event and very much a collaborative effort, so we'd like to thank all the following who will be exhibiting, demonstrating, performing, providing refreshments or who have supported the event in some way.

Henna Tattoos © Pitt Rivers Museum

The date for next year’s Pitt Fest will be Saturday 5^th September 2015 - we hope you will join us next year for another day of fun, creativity and discovery!

You can find more photos of the day’s highlights on our FacebookPage.