our ragtag team pulled together a festival for the most creative artists, makers and tinkerers within the UK.

last october, i had a blast working on ensemble. it was a lot of work, with a lot of planning. it culminated in an event at plaisterers hall, london, on october 4th 2025.

we wanted a place for people to show what passion projects they are working on. in an increasingly digital world, it's important to focus on the human element of creation. we featured projects from across the shop, whether that was poetry, sculpture, metalwork, digital art or code.

our event was rodeo themed, organisers came prepared for the wild west with their cowboy hats. why rodeo? simply a budget quirk. we wanted a domain name for the event, and as students that often cheap out on things, we noticed that ensemble.rodeo was available and cheap. from this the entire theme of the event spun out across the branding and feel of the day.

FOR THE COWBOYS (AND COWGIRLS)

we had 370+ attendees, 5+ main stage demos, and then a series of 10+ smaller breakout unconferences, where people can show each other what they are passionate about.

unconferences included people building chainsaw robots during their exams, jousting lime bikes, lock picking robots and discussions on cinema, drama and the arts.

ensemble builds upon co-working clubs in the uk inspired by socratica (at the university of waterloo in good ol’ canada “our home and native land”). the uk nodes included [craft] (imperial), [orchard] (oxford), [scale down] (cambs), [daisy] (liverpool) and [meadow] (warwick). while [craft] and [scale down] died in 2025 (rip), quack rises from its ashes in cambridge.

throughout the ups and downs of planning it, the event was a success. the most important thing about ensemble is the people who come, they are the true creatives that form our thriving community in the UK. we hope they enjoyed it as much as we did!

YEE HAW