After five joyous, community-celebrating and grassroots action-galvanising Green Hustle Festivals, the team behind the event are this month putting on the most expansive and exploratory edition yet. With the theme of ‘Sow Good’, Green Hustle CIC Co-Director and LeftLion Environment Editor Adam Pickering guides us through how the crew hopes to seed a sustainable and thriving Notts through creativity, inclusion and inspiration.
In the grand twenty-year tradition of the Hustle Collective (we started Hockley Hustle in 2006!), we’ve gone and got another festival on our hands. On Saturday 30 May Green Hustle Festival returns under the seed-inspired theme of Sow Good, where you can expect food, gardening, music, performance, circus, literature, sport, fashion, community, and much more (no, really).
You could call it a festival of life – the things we do, and how we can do them better when we get together. It’s a feast for everyone, with pay-as-you-feel food and drink on offer at our main Old Market Square community kitchen, and completely free activities. It’s also designed with accessibility in mind, featuring level access sites set on a wheelable route around the city.
Firstly, why are we theming it Sow Good? Because it’s all about seeds – a million mini revolutions and what we can achieve when we nurture our own and others’ potential… If a seed’s a start, and we’re here to make an impact and make our community stronger, then our festival’s a whole packet of potential. And you’re in it, innit.
Before (and after) the big day..
Green Hustle Festival comes around just once a year, but we’re at it year-round, supported by many hundreds of volunteers over the last six years. Collectively we’ve planted 10,000 local trees, like the now skyfaring 1,000 tree Hustle Holt Miyawaki Forest at Woodthorpe Park, or the over 5,000 tree Aspley People’s Forest. We’ve also picked a lorry-load of litter and done fancy creative and planty things at our Wilford Street Wildlife Ramp.
The whole festival was co-created with our brilliant partners It’s In Nottingham, Experian, E.ON Next, Savoy Systems, Nottingham College, and Nottingham City Council, via walkshops and pop-ups at Hockley Hustle and Young Hustlers last October. From all these inputs, we developed the theme of ‘Sow Good’ and invited open applications for activities – we’ve just about managed to cram all of them in!
It takes a city to make it, and there are loads of opportunities to get involved in creating the festival with us in May. You can get crafty with our decor team 5-8pm at the People's Hall on May 14 and 23, and Tuesdays at Fisher Gate Point May 5, 19 and 26. Or, you could help stitch together our Slow Fashion catwalk upcycling sessions, whilst learning to repair and glow up your own wardrobe, at 5-9pm at Fisher Gate Point on 5, 14, 19, and 26 May. All occasions are free to join.
At Green Hustle Festival: Sow Good on Saturday 30 May…
After five previous Green Hustle Festivals, starting online in 2020 and moving up through Sneinton Market Avenues and the square, we wanted to switch this one up and explore even more of the city – especially all the nice new green bits near the train station. So we’re spreading out – shift over duck. Here’s where you’ll find us.
Old Market Square
Still our main squeeze, slab square’s going to look a lot less slabby on 30 May. Food (growing and eating), slow fashion and family fun is the vibe.
Expect a very long dining table for everyone to gather round, fantastic creative installations, circus, puppets, plenty of crafty activities, and a lot of green things to see, do and learn. We’re bringing new life to the fountain where there’ll be a huge live art billboard, a pop-up forest school from Woodland Trust, and the Sherwood Forest Trust. There’s also a bespoke garden by GrowNotts, populated by pro propagators from local community gardens
It’s all about getting together, sowing, growing and sharing the good stuff – there’ll be pay-as-you-feel food at the Community Kitchen served by Shifting Your Mindset and DISHED, a new refreshments stall coming from the wonderful Pulp Friction, a lot of nice foody treats to buy like Veggies and Abeyo Ethiopia, and locally made goodies.
There’ll be a brand new ‘geodome’, where you can get stuck into science, learning and wellbeing activities. Alternatively, you can get creative alongside our Listen Inn and Action Cafe, where you’ll find a tonne of local groups you can get involved with – such as getting yourself a damn good listening to with Resolve Notts. Of course, we’ll also host all the big local nature and community action crews you’d expect, including Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, Green Guardians, Clean Champions, and more. There’ll also be plenty of artists, musicians and creatives sharing their talent.
You could call it a festival of life – the things we do, and how we can do them better when we get together
Sussex Street, Nottingham Central Library, The Green Heart and beyond
You might think that’s plenty to get your teeth into – it’s not even the half of it. We’re sprout‘n’ about town, creating a whole tour of the city’s finest new green spaces with lots of fun popping up along the route.
Sussex Street, Nottingham College, or the Tramline spot – the area’s so new it doesn’t really have a well-trodden name – will be a space for getting moving. It’ll be singing with city gardening, community performances, and sport including the likes of The Pythian Club and Switch Up. Skate Nottingham will be offering skate lessons (including a girls-only one to start the day) and skate-ramp building.
We’ll be teaming up with Art Fest for live mural painting all over the place, and there’ll be parades, pop-ups and ‘oh wow!’ moments galore. Sussex Street is also one of the spots (alongside Old Market Square) where you can check out the amazing Slow Fashion Catwalk.
Of course this new route also takes in the Green Heart, which is a little festival of urban nature in itself, but you’ll find the literary action in the adjacent Nottingham Central Library. Try your hand at some poetry, practice your writing, and imagine a new world into life. Beyond and between all that, there’s Nottingham’s amazing street art, Bridlesmith Gate’s ‘bee highway’, and several satellite events like GOBS artist gathering, a full-day creative programme of workshops and performance taking place at New Art Exchange in Hyson Green, and an exhibition at Backlit from interior design students exploring sustainable materials.
That’s not all we have on show, but if we were able to tell you everything going on in a thousand words it wouldn’t be much of a festival. Take your pick – your programme is yours to make, and there’s plenty to make your day.
Whoever said that tackling the climate and nature crisis and putting the power to make change back into regular folks’ hands had to be miserable was wrong – we only do it with love, joy and creativity.
Green Hustle Festival: Sow Good takes place from 11am-6pm on Saturday 30 May. Activities are free and you don’t need a ticket. For more info visit their website or follow them on socials @greenhustlefest.
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