Celebrating Community at the Ouseburn Festival

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🎥 Video credit: Flamingo Heights Podcast Studio

The Newcastle Festival That Doesn’t CoST A PENNY TO ATTEND

Every summer, the Ouseburn Valley in Newcastle upon Tyne comes alive for the Ouseburn Festival, a day packed with performances, pop-up shops, food stalls, face painting, hair braiding, a parade, and even a farmyard's worth of alpacas and hay bales.

Best of all, it's completely free, which means the whole city, and visitors from further afield, can turn up and see what makes this pocket of Newcastle so special.

A Trust Marking 30 Years

The festival is put on by the Ouseburn Trust, who this year are celebrating three decades of looking after the valley. As one Trust volunteer, Pete, dressed for the day's parade with a nod to the tunnel's Victorian history, put it:

"The Ouseburn Trust have been looking after the Ouseburn Valley. They're looking to bring businesses back into the Ouseburn, make it vibrant, and basically keep the heart beating."

On the day, Trust volunteers were everywhere, from leading tours through the Victorian-era Victoria Tunnel to marching in the afternoon parade, all in service of that same goal.

Twenty Years of Free Culture

Creative producer and long-standing festival volunteer Maria Baranowska has watched the festival grow over more than 20 years into one of Newcastle's only entirely free cultural events.

"Ouseburn Festival is a very special event. It's special to me personally, but it's special to the community. It's been going for over 20 years now, and it's one of Newcastle's only free cultural events."

She's clear about why that matters, too:

"As things get harder in the world, as we have cost of living crises, one of the first things that you tend to sacrifice is spending money on cultural events. But I think we all know how much that has a genuine impact on wellbeing, on health, on morale, on spirit. It might just be a little community festival, but it has so many impacts beyond this weekend. I think it's really special. I think we need to protect it."

Investment in the Creative Community

Nearby at 36 Lime Street, you’ll find an artistic home to a community of creatives and makers producing work they can showcase to the wider public. The building has recently had over £800,000 invested by the Creative Foundations Fund, Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, safeguarding the building and creating real opportunities for local artists to keep making work in the community they're part of.

Independents Coming Together

For the businesses that call the Ouseburn home, festival weekend is as much about community as it is about trade. Laura, founder of Flaura Rose, describes the pull of it simply:

"It's just a really great, like creative, arty weekend. So much work goes into it from so many different businesses, and it's not just about the shop, it's like loads of other small businesses coming together. It's a real community vibe."

And on why she's based there at all:

"I'm so lucky to be part of Ouseburn. I wouldn't want my shop to be anywhere else. It's a proper community. All of the businesses stick together."

Jessica, founder of The Find, feels the same pull:

"I love Ouseburn Festival. It's a big celebration of everything that is Ouseburn. It's all the independent businesses coming together and showing what they can do. And it's just a really lovely community event. It's really busy, which is a huge boost for small independent businesses."

She's honest, too, about how tough trading conditions have been:

"I'm watching my peers, watching businesses close regularly, really good businesses that you can't fault, and it is a sign of the times. I think the shift from shopping with larger chains to shopping with small businesses, when you can, is a really important one that people are going to have to make or lose the businesses around them. Ouseburn wouldn't be Ouseburn without all these little independents. It's what makes it so special."

A Village in the City

Ask Jessica what she loves about the Ouseburn and she doesn't hesitate:

"It feels like a village in the city. It feels like a little snapshot of rural life in an urban landscape, in any one postcode. We're surrounded by nature and trees and horses and animals, and it's slowed down and it's more relaxed. No big chains here. There's artwork and graffiti at every turn. It's just something very, very special."

It's that atmosphere that led Jessica to put together a map of the valley, built with a local designer and featuring over 43 businesses:

"I kept getting customers coming into my shop and saying, where can I go for a coffee, where can we go for lunch, what else is there to see around here. So I decided to make a map. It's not an exhaustive map, but it gives people a starting space for exploring the valley, finding the activities, food, drink, shops, and done it at the bare minimum cost for businesses so that they can afford to be on it."

Fifty Years of Ouseburn Farm

Down in the valley, Ouseburn Farm marked its own milestone this year: 50 years since it opened in 1976, when parents bought a small patch of land and began farming it right in the city. It's a rare thing to have a working farm in an urban setting, giving families an easy way to connect with nature and learn about the environment on their doorstep. The farm also employs people with learning disabilities and additional learning needs, making it as much a community project as it is a farm.

To help keep the farm going, you can donate to their campaign here: Ouseburn Farm Fundraiser.

Key Takeaways

• A milestone year: the festival lands alongside the Ouseburn Trust's 30th anniversary and Ouseburn Farm's 50th.

• Free and accessible: over 20 years running, and still one of Newcastle's only entirely free cultural events.

• Community over competition: independent businesses use the festival to support one another, not just themselves.

TheOuseburn Festival is a snapshot of what the valley is all about: independents, artists and volunteers all pulling in the same direction to keep the Ouseburn's heart beating. If you missed it this year, put next year's dates in the diary, and in the meantime, get down to the valley and support the people who make it what it is.

Ps. If you have some spare cash, please consider donating to the Ouseburn Trust to keep this event running!

[IMAGE: A vibrant festival scene with families enjoying stalls and performances in the Ouseburn Valley] [ALT TEXT: Families and children enjoying the Ouseburn Festival with stalls and performances in the background]

[INTERNAL LINK: Explore more Tyne for Business episodes from the Ouseburn] [EXTERNAL LINK: Ouseburn Festival official website]