Festive Feast kicks off Future Makers dream
WEEKEND OF FOOD & MUSIC OPENS WAREHOUSE VENUE
AN empty Nottingham warehouse is becoming a cool new venue for street food, music and events.
Last night’s launch at the former tool hire property in Sneinton was set to be attended by a sell-out crowd.
Called Future Makers, the 9,000 sq ft of space has been transformed with artwork, a graffitied car, a caravan bar, quirky relics, Christmas trees and wooden benches.
The debut event Festive Feast – a collaboration with Nottingham Street Food Club – is a weekendlong Christmasthemed celebration, lasting until 5pm tomorrow, with street food traders, live music and DJS.
Vendors include Biddulph’s Pizza, Squeaky Beaver Poutine and Karke Lebanese Street Food and each will have a Christmas special on the menu.
Tristan Hessing, the man behind Future Makers, hopes to make the urban setting a must-see destination.
He said: “This is really exciting. It’s something brand new for Nottingham. This building has been empty for a while.”
The industrial site – opposite Aldi in Daleside Road – is rapidly changing with the Trent Basin housing development directly behind it.
Tristan said: “Three hundred new homes are being built there and a new primary school. This area is changing into more residential.
“A footbridge is planned at the head of the basin – it’s a beautiful location but it’s unknown, it’s not really a destination. That’s what I’m here to do – to make this place a destination running events.”
Tristan, who is leasing the property from developers Blueprint, hopes to make it a location for creative pop-ups and markets too. The venue will also be a design studio for young start-ups.
“It’s somewhere for creative communities to set up and give their ideas a go.
“It’s a place where you can network and use the space to build something, to test or prototype something you are working on,” said Tristan, a former Nottingham Trent University fine art student who set up One Thoresby Street, an exhibition space and art studio near Biocity.
This weekend’s event will have twohour sittings. Visitors are encouraged to book to guarantee a table. It will be used as a test run for a programme of events is drawn up for 2022.
The launch was delayed by a year due to the pandemic. Tristan said: “This venue is about three years in the making from when I first started having conversations with Blueprint about having one of their sites.
“We were building up late 2019/early 2020 to launch something like tonight and then lockdown started and then all the uncertainty that came in the summer of 2020.
“It’s been quite hard to get it going as once the lockdowns eased the whole supply chain around it was really busy so it’s been hard to get all the suppliers and contractors to come together at the same time.”
Tickets are £5 including a drink on arrival. Admission for children aged 12 and under is free.
Search “Festive Feast Nottingham” to book at eventbrite.co.uk.
It’s something brand new. This venue is about three years in the making
Tristan Hessing