Urban Village Fete 2025
Urban Village Fete 2025
The 10th Urban Village Fete took place on Sunday, 18th May 2025, and I thought it was a fantastic success.
With various workshops taking place not just inside the park but also on the riverfront and in the nearby Design District buildings.
The Pottery, printing and tile-making workshops took place just across the road from Central Park, in the Design District workshops.
Most of the other workshops took place in tents or on stalls in the park.
This year’s workshops included:
- Band weaving
- Creating your own aromatherapy spray.
- Bamboo weaving.
- Home mushroom cultivation.
- Nail art workshop.
- Making mini bags and charms from waste recycling material.
- Making with Mycelium.
- Polish Paper Cutting.
- Making Kimchi.
- Herbal Tea Blending.
- Rosette Making.
- Pottery painting.
- Making Pinch Pots.
- Beats and Braids hairstyling.
- Printing Workshop.
- Ceramic Tile Making.
- Kombucha Workshop.
For the children we had:
Two Art Workshops for Kids. Dreamhouse and Funny Elephants both with Acrylic Markers, and also a third Workshop called Self-Portrait using Oil Pastels.
For the fitness-minded amongst us, there were Fitness Workshops of Yoga, Group Fitness, a Breathing workshop and Kids workout with the nearby Gather Gym.
These workshops took place outside on Tide Square by the Riverside near the Gather Gym on Cutter Lane.
For our four-legged friends, there was the Canine Circus Dog Training Workshop.
For the more oratorical amongst us, BBC Radio London’s Robert Elms hosted a series of creative conversations in the Design District covering Britain’s education system, community & collaboration, and fashion. A community-led input and a gathering of ideas to help society move forward and progress.
This year’s music was provided by DJs Gilles Peterson, Errol and Alex Rita, the founders of Touching Bass, and DJ Jack Hemingway and DJs from Radio Loose FM.
The London Soul Choirs also brought soul and harmony from a mix of Choirs across the capital.
The were also several smaller sound systems to entertain the families at the other end of the park.
This is where me and the wife and a friend planted our seats for the day and were entertained by the ‘Speaker Box Street Party’, who are a high-energy social dance Workshop group.
They got everyone dancing from toddlers to pensioners, and they succeeded along with the DJs in doing what the Urban Village Fete was all about, making sure families and children in particular had a fabulous time.
I noticed that although they had security and stewards all over the park I did not see any police patrolling the park or venues, so it just goes to show that a family orientated event can run smoothly and efficiently and safely when people have a good time and don’t rely on the consumption of too much alcohol to have a good time.
One thing that I would bring back from last year that I did not care for too much this year was the toilet arrangements.
Last year, the men’s and women’s toilets were in large trailers with running water. This year, the men and women shared plastic Portaloos and hand sanitisers, and the men had an area of urinals with virtually no privacy from people walking past. It must be a cost-cutting issue.
Here’s looking forward to next year’s Urban Village Fete.
Below is a video of this year’s event, or the video can be viewed on the Greenwich Review YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW6Wcse-fJI
