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FixFest 2025: A Celebration of Community Repair and Global Solidarity
A big event can make you feel part of a bigger family.
FixFest 2025 brought the global repair community together in Hackney, London last 5th and 6th of September. It was a truly inspiring gathering event, organised by The Restart Project and supported by partners including iFixit and BlackMarket.
The event drew repairers, community organisers, activists, policy-makers, educators, companies, and thinkers from every corner of the world.
From the moment I arrived, it was clear that FixFest wasn’t just another conference. The organisers kept repeating something that perfectly captured the atmosphere:
“FixFest is a gathering where everyone has something to offer and can actively contribute.”People shared knowledge freely, listened generously, and looked to one another as equals. For me, it felt like stepping into a big family, built on trust, curiosity, and appreciation, absolutely in line with how we work in our network of groups. I had the honour of representing RCNI on a panel called The Power of Networks, together with other network coordinators from the UK and other parts of the world (Belgium and Argentina). We explored how regional networks strengthen the repair movement, support volunteers, and can create a strong basis for groups to become more resilient, offering various solutions to common challenges.
During the Q&A, several attendees wanted to learn more about our work in NI, particularly how much our community-led network has achieved over the years despite limited resources. It was a great opportunity to be inspiring and get new ideas from others.
I discovered (with not much surprise) that networks and groups face many of the same challenges we do, to name one: running volunteer-led repair events with very little funding.
FixFest was also an opportunity to reconnect with the latest policy developments around the Right to Repair. Much of the conversation centred on new EU regulations, updates to the Repairability Index, and how these changes will affect electronic products across Europe.
These developments are having an effect also in the UK, urging the Government to endorse the UK Repair and Reuse Declaration (you can add your voice using the link), asking, among others, to make repair more affordable, and introduce a national Repairability Index.
RCNI is one of the signatories to this important initiative.
